Introduction and Welcome

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 22, 2021, and we are super excited to have back in our studios for the new John Larsen series. The one, the only John Larsen. Hey, John. How's it going?

John Larsen [00:00:23] Good. Glad to be here.

John Dehlin [00:00:25] It's good to have you back.

John Larsen [00:00:27] Always fun to come to the studio. What's the name of the studio?

John Dehlin [00:00:29] Right now? It's boring. It's like Mormon Stories podcast studios. Do you want to give it a name? Do you want to anoint it with the name?

John Larsen [00:00:37] Naming is something you have to. You wait for nature to bestow the name. You know, just make something up out

John Dehlin [00:00:44] of baby book so that I'm assigning that job to you. Will you accept that responsibility?

John Larsen [00:00:48] I will.

John Dehlin [00:00:48] I will. What was your studio named when you had one?

John Larsen [00:00:50] Which one?

John Dehlin [00:00:51] Okay.

John Larsen [00:00:51] Like Studio fist in your face. Studio A1, I think, was the one. Why did we call the one that was downtown? I don't remember. We had lots of nicknames for it.

John Dehlin [00:01:04] All right, so we want to welcome our live. We are live streaming this episode. We want to welcome our live viewers and listeners on both YouTube and Facebook. We're super excited to have you. We are also joined by the brilliant, the thoughtful, the funny, the wise Carah Burrell. Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:01:23] Oh, my gosh. Wow. What an introduction. Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:26] It's good to have you. Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:01:28] Good to see you, John.

John Dehlin [00:01:29] We're back in the sad.

Carah Burrell [00:01:30] Yeah, John was out of town over the weekend. I had my daughter's birthday. Getting ready to get to work now. The only John Larsen in studio. It's gonna be super fun.

John Dehlin [00:01:39] Life. Life can't. Can't get much better, I think.

Carah Burrell [00:01:42] It really can't.

Announcements and Upcoming Events

John Dehlin [00:01:43] Okay, I have a quick couple business item announcements to make before we jump in, but these are all super fun and exciting for those of you who don't know. We've got Thrive, Thrive day coming up November 14th. We've got an amazing list of speakers. Sarah Edmondson from, you know, Ex Nexium, Cold Survivor. She's. She wrote a book called Scarred. She's been on the HBO documentary the Vow, and she has a podcast called A Little Bit Culty. She has confirmed that she's going to speak at Thrive Day 2021 on November 14th. We also RFM is coming. Bill Real is coming. That's confirmed. Now we're. We have Alan and Katie Mount for marriage on a Tightrope. We have Lance Allred, former NBA basketball player. He's speaking also at Thrive Day. Carah's going to be there. She's going to be leading up a bunch of amazing TikTokers. Anything you want to say about that, Carah?

Carah Burrell [00:02:39] I don't want to announce today who I got for this panel, but I got some really cool people from TikTok that are going to be.

John Dehlin [00:02:46] And YouTube. Right. I mean, I guess most YouTubers.

Carah Burrell [00:02:48] Yeah. You know, people who do crossover onto that. Yeah. So I put together a really fun list of panelists that are going to come do. Yeah, we're just going to speak and have some fun. So, like, it's going to be really epic. I'm telling you guys.

John Dehlin [00:03:02] Yeah. So go to, go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events and you can, you can sign up now for these events. Thrive Thrive Day for women sold out. That's October 2nd or 3rd. I don't even need to tell you the date because you can't go if you haven't already signed up because it's sold out. So if you want to be a part of Thrive Day 2021 in November on the 14th, sign up now. Nonprofit. Nobody's profiting from this event. It's all based through an official nonprofit that I don't even have access to the bank account. But we're, we have to front like 10 or 20 grand to even rent the Salt Palace.

John Dehlin [00:03:42] So this is all an altruistic non for profit. We are paying the speakers, but check it out, it's going to be an amazing day. There's also a Thrive Day for youth that's led by Jesse Funk. So if you want to get your youth signed up now, let's just say ages 12 to 18 or whatever, we're going to have amazing day filled for youth. So that's exciting. But I'm also just super excited to give you an update on the John Larsen Mormon Expression Project here on Mormon Stories podcast. So basically I made a deal, we made a deal with you guys. John was willing to share with us his archive content, give us the permission to reshare it on the Internet, and John would agree to come to come on Mormon Stories podcast at least once a month to share with us his wisdom.

Mormon Expression Podcast Project Update

John Dehlin [00:04:30] And I just want to report to you the amazing news. So we have now, we have now Mormon Expression up on Spotify and on six other platforms. So now Mormon Expression Podcast is on seven platforms. We have something like 90, 98% of the total episodes up. There's just a few that we still need to find and upload because somehow hackers took them down or they were taken down for whatever reason. But here's the good news. We, we now just, just the information on Anchor and on Spotify tell us that this, this podcast has been played over 20,000 times just on Spotify. There's over 2,000, 2,251 unique listeners and the stats are kind of exponentially growing.

John Dehlin [00:05:26] So you can now totally enjoy almost the full archive of Mormon Expression podcast on your podcasting platform of preference. And it's not just on Spotify and Anchor. It's on Apple Podcasts, it's on Google Podcast, Overcast, Breaker, Castbox and a bunch of other stitcher. Bunch of other platforms I have never heard of or never use. John Larsen, how's that been? Have you even heard from people that. That people are now re enjoying Mormon expression or enjoying and discovering Mormon expression for the first time?

John Larsen [00:06:03] I've heard a few things. I feel like I need to give a trigger warning though, and I'm kind of being a little bit serious here.

John Dehlin [00:06:08] Okay.

John Larsen [00:06:09] Mormon expression goes from 2009 to about 2014 when we end. And I think one of the powers of the podcast to those who participate speak from the heart, and they don't necessarily have Personas. I mean, everybody's amped up a little bit for performance, but my wife at the time and I go through a divorce in the middle of Mormon Expression. And the reason I bring this up is because there are many people who have found it traumatic to listen to.

John Larsen [00:06:41] I think it can be cathartic and hopefully we give some good tips. Our children are mostly grown. Matter of fact, my youngest turns 18. The children at ZILFA and I share here in a couple weeks. And so we successfully raised our children. I even saw ZILFA yesterday. Everyone saw people ask me about her.

John Larsen [00:07:01] Mormonism is something that she has left behind. So that is a chapter in her life that's pretty much closed. So she really doesn't have much of any interest in engaging anymore. But she has a lovely husband and, and we've shaped a great life. But you're gonna hear the divorce and I just wanna prepare people for that.

John Dehlin [00:07:23] Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. And, you know, that's part, you know, we're podcasters, but we're real people too. And life happens while you're podcasting.

John Larsen [00:07:31] Part of the humanity of the podcast. And it's something that a lot of people struggle with. And I count myself fortunate that having gone through some of those experiences, I was able to gain a lot of empathy for the kind of, the kind of struggles that people go through. And that's one of the, I don't know, big major struggles that people leave the church is. It puts a lot of strain on relationships.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] Yeah, yeah. And also it's probably fair to mention that Mormon Expression intentionally and probably refreshingly took a different approach than Mormon Stories Podcast. So even though we're proud to be resharing and supporting the Mormon Expression Archive, you know, it was, it was more free flowing, emotion wise, it got more angry at times, it was less intentionally throttled or reserved. And they're swearing and other types of things. And so we love that about it. We know that's what many listeners loved about it. And you should know that when you enjoy Mormon Expression Podcast, it's going to be different than the Mormon Stories experience. Fair to say.

John Larsen [00:08:35] Yeah, yeah. And I think that's. I've always, people have asked why I swear I can address this now or why don't I, why don't I edit myself a little bit more? And the answer is, frankly, because I speak the way I speak. I speak from the heart. And that's why you hear me angry sometimes. That's why you hear me upset sometimes, because I'm just, that's how I feel in the moment. And I have often said, and it's true, that if you can't handle, if your worldview requires engaging the world with kid gloves, like you can't handle hearing people use naughty words, if that's going to be a detriment to you, then you're not ready. So, so yes, if the, if the, if the language offends you, please turn it off, I ask you, because you don't. Because the offensive things in that podcast are not the dirty words.

John Dehlin [00:09:31] I love that. I love that. Really quick. I want to thank all the listeners who donated to support the Mormon Expression Project. We have had a great response to that. We have enough to pay John. What I think is, is hopefully at least a humane and reasonable, you know, monthly sort of fee or compensation for what he does, but also to pay for, you know, some of the, some of the financial costs or all the financial costs. And some of the time I, I have to, I also want to give a shout out to my friend Justin. I was just individually posting these episodes one by one up to Anchor and Spotify and I got a couple hundred in, but there was just a lot more.

John Dehlin [00:10:15] And so my friend Justin stepped in and he took it over and, and he, he completed the publishing of the episode. So a huge shout out to Justin and again to all the donors that made that possible. Have we if you want to donate. Oh, go ahead. John, were you getting us a question?

John Larsen [00:10:29] I was just gonna ask. Have we. Have we put up the Voices episodes yet?

John Dehlin [00:10:32] No.

John Larsen [00:10:33] So they will be coming. There's about two or 300 of them, which are just. Some of them are me. We had a whole different. A bunch of people who did the interviews, and it was just people talking to other people about their experiencing as being the church. They can be very powerful, very meaningful, and we'll get those up there.

John Dehlin [00:10:49] Probably maybe as its own podcast, or do you think it should be all one archive?

John Larsen [00:10:54] It was its own podcast. That would probably be best. We'll talk about it. Look forward to that.

John Dehlin [00:10:57] Yeah. So if you want to.

John Larsen [00:10:58] If.

John Dehlin [00:10:59] Thank you for those who supported this podcast, Mormon Expression Project, or John Larsen's appearance on Mormon Stories, if you want to support it, if you really believe in John or Mormon Expression or Mormon Expression Voices, we would love your monthly support. So go to. You go to Mormon expression.com it's going to redirect. You click on the donation link or you can go to MormonStories.org Mormon expression. You can click on the donation link, become a monthly donor. And that's how you support John Larsen on Mormon Stories and the Mormon Expression Project. All that. All those donations are transparent to John, so he knows exactly how much money is coming in.

John Dehlin [00:11:34] And John and I just work together to figure out how to spend the money. So thanks for everyone. That's just a quick update. We're super excited about that. And again, thanks to Justin for making that possible. Okay, so. So we are going to jump into an amazing episode today, and we decided we get a lot of feedback from you guys. Sometimes there are a lot of you that just love that John Larsen's involved. You love the Mormon Expression stuff. Some of you write and complain, saying, hey, John, when you bring John Larsen on, he swears, you know, I don't like this partnership, blah, blah, blah.

Content Warnings and Editorial Decisions

John Dehlin [00:12:09] I just want to kind of say that we thought a lot about what to do. Should we. You know, obviously one option is, well, we shouldn't partner with John Larsen. To me, that's one of the craziest ideas in the world. John Larsen is a legend. He's brilliant, he's funny. And so many of you, the overwhelming majority of you, are just thrilled about this partnership. But there's a few of you that are like, hey, I want Mormon Stories to be safe for, you know, believers, people that are newly coming out of the church. And so we thought about, well, how do we do this? How do we make sure that newbies, people questioning Mormonism, even believers, can still enjoy Mormon Stories or find value in it and not be turned off by things, as John Larsen said, maybe they're not ready for.

John Dehlin [00:12:48] And the solution we came up with is with the content rating. So what we want to do at the beginning of each episode. Episode is if a Mormon Stories episode isn't going to be kind of believer, orthodox, Mormon friendly, we'll say it. And so, Carah and John, as we, as we launch into this episode, how should we rate today's episode in terms of it being orthodox Mormon believer friendly? John, what do you want to say about that?

John Larsen [00:13:12] I think we're going to be a solid PG13. I don't have a lot of like, curse words penciled in so there won't

John Dehlin [00:13:17] be like 7F bombs in three sentences kind of thing.

John Larsen [00:13:20] Yeah, don't. And don't throw like Holland's name around a lot.

John Dehlin [00:13:23] And we'll, we'll be okay if we don't mention Holland. But PG 13, in other words, there may be some. A little bit of swearing here and there. Carah, do you want to add anything?

Carah Burrell [00:13:30] Heck no. I will behave.

John Dehlin [00:13:34] Okay. Okay, so this is a PG13 rating. If you're sensitive to light, to moderate swearing and passionate speech, you should bail on this one.

Carah Burrell [00:13:44] I like the metaphor. If you're sensitive to light, you're sensitive to truth. No, just kidding.

John Dehlin [00:13:49] I like it. Yeah. Otherwise everyone else should. Should really enjoy. Carah, tell us how the. For some reason the Facebook. This YOLO box isn't working in terms of live streaming to Facebook. And that's one of the main reasons we got it. I don't know what we're going to do about that, but. But you're monitoring the YouTube stream. Anything you want to say about that before we jump in?

Carah Burrell [00:14:10] Just wanted to give a shout out. Thank you for the super chat. Jamie and I missed one from Terry. Thanks for the super chat.

John Dehlin [00:14:17] Tell our listeners what Super Chats are.

Carah Burrell [00:14:18] Super chats. On YouTube, there's a little rectangle that has a dollar sign in it and you can press that button and send us 5, 10, 1500 bucks, whatever you feel like. And you can either just send it or you can attach it with a comment that you want us to read on air. And that just goes into funding more Mormon stories content. And we say thank you for that.

John Dehlin [00:14:40] Yeah. And one of the main reasons we live stream is because we really want your comments and questions and feedback. So, you know, we have really brilliant people like LDS discussions or others who actually help contribute to the discussion around history. Today we're going to be covering Mormon history. And so please post your comments and questions on the live stream on YouTube. And Carah will monitor them and she'll insert them in at different points. Haters are not welcome. And or Carol will enjoy you as a hater. You sometimes like haters, Carah.

Carah Burrell [00:15:14] I love haters on my TikTok. I get the best content out of that. But, you guys, this is Mormon stories. We're classier here. Everyone behave. And at the top of every program, I think we should do a new announcement of how to spell my name, because love interacting with people and no one knows how to spell my name. And it's not their fault. It was my mom's idea.

John Dehlin [00:15:30] So I see it. Devin wrote it. It's K a R, A, right? No, Devin just wrote it.

Carah Burrell [00:15:35] Oh, he said N. Yeah, it's a R a H, just like Sarah.

John Dehlin [00:15:40] C a R a H. That's your. It's so Utah. You are so Utah. You have a Utah spelling of your name.

Carah Burrell [00:15:45] Okay, we're making this NC17 because I'm. It's going to get bloody if you call me a Utah name. This is my mom's Michigan idea. She invented that in Michigan, where I was born. But anyway, it's just a difference. It's just the C with Sarah. That's all it is. Now, we all know that's my public service announcement. Thank you for listening and coming to my TED Talk.

Setting the Stage for the Lamanite Topic

John Dehlin [00:16:00] Okay. All right, so for. It's now time to jump into the actual content substance of this episode. And I just want to. I want to give a little bit of a precursor. And that's just that this is really.

John Dehlin [00:16:16] It's easy for us to kind of. This. What Joseph Smith did with Native Americans and with Lamanites is so outrageous. It's so ridiculous in some ways. It's so absurd that it's very easy to sort of like slide into laughter and mocking and humor.

John Dehlin [00:16:37] But it's also, you know, we just had recently on Mormon Stories podcast, an episode, you know, with Sarah Newcomb and Monica Crowfoot and one other amazing Native American woman. And it is really powerful. It's really emotional and it's really sensitive. How incredibly offensive and racist. Just the term Lamanite, the concept of a Lamanite is, but also just the history of the Mormon Church and Native American peoples. And so I just want to say at the outset, even the title of this episode, which is Joseph Smith's Revelation and Mission to the Lamanites, I had to put Lamanites in quotes, because the term is so offensive. So like you said, John, you basically said this.

John Dehlin [00:17:22] If we're going to give a trigger warning, it shouldn't be for a couple bad words. It's to the absurdity and offensiveness that really is this topic. And so I just want to. If we're going to give any warning, it should be that this is. It's going to be easy to be. Try and make jokes, to not cry, but this kind of stuff is kind of deeply offensive. What would you say is just a disclaimer?

John Larsen [00:17:44] Yeah, it's tough. And I think one of the things we're going to try to do is unpack this and put it back out of mystical space, that these were real people at a real time, and the United States looked a certain way.

John Larsen [00:17:59] And we'll talk about the tribes and the people that they were visiting. But to impress that this. This was real events and real teachings and. And building on what you're saying, it's kind of funny sometimes when I'm preparing for these, there are things that are widely believed in the church that are sometimes difficult to find the proof text that has it succinctly in a couple sentences because this stuff is so ingrained, the beliefs about. About the Indians.

John Larsen [00:18:29] The American Indians. I was talking to John before we recorded, and I referenced that primary song we used to sing, and we used to do it. This is not that long ago, like in the 70s and 80s. I don't know if they've stopped in extremely offensive ways singing about Book of Mormon stories and about the Lamanites and the hand gestures that we learned.

John Larsen [00:18:52] And it's difficult to deal with this stuff because it's real and it really was part of our heritage. But I think it's important. It's important that we unpack this and understand what really happened.

John Dehlin [00:19:03] Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let's dive in.

John Larsen [00:19:06] Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna have a slight. Because I promised in previous podcasts I would address that. Our search, Dear John, is for truth. Right. We're not on any. I'm on no one's team because no one's on my team. So. So, no, that's not true. I. It sounded clever, but it wasn't. All right, so. So one of the things I said in the previous podcast was I said the garments were optional, and that created quite a bit of strum and drang across the Internet.

John Larsen [00:19:40] I didn't use the right words. And from context, if you listen to the podcast, I immediately go and start talking about my ancestors. Who wouldn't take them off? What I meant to say was that they are now basically not required all the time. And I have the statement from the church, not that some people don't have to wear them in. Prior to the 2019 temple recommend changes, they used to ask, do you wear your garments both night and day as instructed in the endowment in accordance with the covenant you made in the temple? They changed that in 2019 to do you covenant that you. Do you keep the covenants that you made in the temple, including wearing temple garments as instructed in the diamonds?

John Larsen [00:20:22] This switch has been interpreted by some to mean that you don't have to wear the garments 100% of the time. And Jana Reese has done a lot of work on this. She's talked about it quite considerably, especially dealing with millennials and zoomers, that they have a very different view on garments. And I think where for John, our generation growing up, some people would like not wear their garments at the gym, others would. So they would. There were people, a lot of Mormons, who would wear them all the time unless they were swimming for the rising generations, they might say, not wear them to go out dancing.

John Larsen [00:20:58] And that's what I was referring to. Not the fact the church has made garments optional, but that garments are becoming culturally optional. And people have interpreted the statement by the church to mean as much that they don't have to wear them 24 hours a day.

John Dehlin [00:21:11] Yeah. When I was growing up, there was a question as to whether or not you took them off during sexual intercourse. Like there were people that. That had sex through their garments.

John Larsen [00:21:21] Right.

John Dehlin [00:21:21] There were other. I'm not kidding. And there were also people who, when they showered, they would keep them around their wrist or around their ankle so that they never actually took them off. Now, Carrie, you look like you used

Carah Burrell [00:21:33] to think that that was an anti Mormon lie.

John Dehlin [00:21:35] No.

Carah Burrell [00:21:36] You're telling me that's a real thing?

John Dehlin [00:21:38] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [00:21:38] There are people who did that.

John Larsen [00:21:39] I had an uncle, one in particular, I remember. And when, when they switched from one piecers to two pieces, he was convinced that was sure sign the church was going apostasy. Maybe he was right because look who we are now.

Carah Burrell [00:21:52] Yeah, they kept getting shorter and shorter.

John Larsen [00:21:54] Yeah. And I have a. I have. Well, my mom. I'll try to get it. Have her give it to me. I have an old union suit. When they had the collars and it was. It's wool. It. It would be a warm thing, you know, they. It's something that's constantly changing and more or less I just wanted to Refer to that. That evolution. Okay. So hopefully that clears things up.

John Dehlin [00:22:14] Thank you for that.

John Larsen [00:22:16] The. The other thing I want to address is I do read all the comments.

John Dehlin [00:22:22] Oh, wow.

John Larsen [00:22:23] Well, I try A good man.

John Dehlin [00:22:24] You're a better man than me.

John Larsen [00:22:26] I try. I don't get them all because they're across multiple platforms, but. And then I look for ones that, that are good questions that can be addressed. Some of them I will address directly occasionally, but don't hold your breath because I may not see them all. However, Randy McRae had a great comment that I think deserves to be addressed. So bear with me for five minutes as I take us down.

John Dehlin [00:22:49] Randy must have made an important comment.

John Larsen [00:22:52] Okay, I'm going to read you Randy's comment. I think I scraped this out of YouTube. He said, wait a minute, I'm confused. Larsen is talking about the church because it's true or false? If it is false, then why doesn't Mr. Larsen, being so knowledgeable as he thinks he is, tell us where the true church is? Which church is the true church, Larsen? You know, apostles, prophets, priesthood, continuing revelations, temples, work for the dead. Where's that church, you guys? Anti Mormon stories? Excuse me? Mormon stories are so sharp. You must know. Why are you holding this valuable knowledge from us? Are you critics only? They are a dime a dozen.

John Larsen [00:23:33] Where is the true church? That I can investigate. And I mean, it's a little bit funny, but there is a sincere question behind there. And I want you to know I'm not reading this to make fun of this individual, but I think this question deserves to be addressed. And it's a complicated answer, unfortunately.

John Larsen [00:23:55] First of all, there's two key concepts in here, church and true, that are pivotal. The concept of the church is very, very old. And it comes from Mother Catholic Church, it comes from the original Christians. And for them, from my understanding of Christian theology, the term church basically referred to the body of believers.

John Larsen [00:24:18] So the concept for most of Christian history, which is over 2,000 years now, the concept of a true church. Most Christians who've been on the planet would not understand what you were talking about because if you have a body of believers in Christ, then they are believers in God.

John Larsen [00:24:37] And having to put a concept of truth around that is really kind of absurd to most Christians. So as we got into post Gutenberg and post Reformation, the truth, the churches started to split with the Protestant Reformation, and of course that went crazy in the United States.

John Larsen [00:25:00] But for most Christians, they would consider themselves denominational and ecumenical. Those words don't get thrown around in Mormon circles very Much so bear with me as I define them. A denomination would acknowledge that we have different interpretations of the Gospel of Jesus, that we don't agree on all things, but we do acknowledge that we're all believers in the same God. So we might say that Lutheranism and Pentecostalism. That's probably not a good one. Lutheranism, and I don't know, the Methodists, those are denominations, they're very independent from one another. But most of the individuals participating or scholars would not say, I'm a Lutheran. Therefore all Methodists are going to hell.

John Larsen [00:25:46] So they're denominations. They acknowledge differences, but they also acknowledge that they're one body of Christ. That's the word that they would use. Then we have sects, S, E, C T S. Just to not get you guys excited, Mormon expression fans.

John Larsen [00:26:02] And a sect is defined as a. Basically a denomination that itself says all the other denominations are wrong. So a sect is not usually called out by the other dominations as being the one that says everyone else is wrong. A sect does it itself. So the Jehovah Witnesses would be considered a Christian sect. The Mormonism would be considered a Christian sect. Although because Mormonism redefined God in many significant ways, that is up for legitimate scholarly debate. Okay, okay. So when we talk about. And then the term church kind of evolved more or less in the Americas to say which church do you go to, which building, which congregation?

John Larsen [00:26:46] And it became a little bit more divisive, of course, and that burned over time. So, Randy, I think the idea that there is one true church is not really backed up by anything. And of course, true is as it is. If you say something that's true, it's true. If you say something that's false, it's true. You can't say, my geology professor is a true geology professor. So whatever he says right or wrong is true. So the concept of even applying the term truth to a church doesn't have any meaning because the Mormon Church is a collection of policies, procedures, doctrines, teachings, individuals, people. It's not something that can be weighed or measured as true.

John Larsen [00:27:29] And I would challenge anybody who says the church is true to say, well, the church of 1875 that believed the Adam God doctrine, that believed in polygamy, that believed in blood atonement, that all these kind of things that we have abandoned, was that part of the true church?

John Larsen [00:27:46] Was the church True in 1875 and is it true now? So as to your concept that the true church contains apostles, prophets, priesthoods, continuing revelations, temples, I think you're pulling a lot of Stuff that is Mormons sort of proof texting their own things, I would challenge you back. I've read the New Testament, and according to the New Testament, two markers of the. Of the church are women are not allowed to talk and they cover their hair. So I don't think you can proof text through the New Testament, say the true church has to have this and have this and have this and ignore the other things in there that you don't like.

John Larsen [00:28:24] Peter very, very clearly said that there is nothing that goes into your mouth that defiles you. So if you want to pull New Testament out on me to say this is the one true church, and I would say it's clearly not the one true church, because Peter said that you can't ban things by what they eat. And he was specifically referring to the old.

John Larsen [00:28:46] The kosher laws at the time. And as the church moved out into among the Greeks and the Romans, who didn't keep kosher, it said there's nothing that you put into yourself that defiles you. That includes coffee. So your whole thing is problematic because you're picking little things to say we're true. So we are not here to just establish that the church is true or false, because that is a fallacious setup. It's not real. We're only here to find out what is true and what is what and what is good, basically. Does that address Randy's. Randy's question?

John Dehlin [00:29:24] I love it. And I love it that. That we can have a dialogue with our viewers and listeners and. And I love starting our episodes that way so that. Yeah, that makes sense. And when you listen to Catholics and evangelicals, when they say the church, they. They really do mean something very different. And this is the way that Mormons are just kind of really out of the loop with both Catholic Christians and mainstream Protestant Christians. You know, when we say the church, we mean the one and only true church, which almost no Christians across the world think of it that way.

John Larsen [00:29:56] Well, and so it was a definition that was established basically after the church was established. So you can't really be used to it to say the church. Like, if I walk in here and say, you know, the One True podcast will be wearing a white shirt, have a ponytail. Well, color everybody else skeptical, because I said that after I walked in with a white shirt, a ponytail. Okay. One other thing I feel like needs to be addressed because it comes up quite often, the two John Larsons. There are people who say, well, sometimes there's this loving, kind John who wants. Who wants everybody to get along And John, you've pointed out, if people want a taste of that John, they can listen to the Phoenix Sunstone talk from a few years ago.

John Dehlin [00:30:36] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:30:36] And then there's the John who is. Who is angry and pissed and yelling at people. I would say you can understand those two best by relying on our friend Chief Justice Roberts and his ruling in 2010 of. Of citizens United.

John Larsen [00:30:57] During Citizens United, the Supreme Court in the United States decided two key things. Money is speech, and corporations are people as such. There are people who think that corporations deserve compassion. I wholeheartedly disagree with Citizens United. I think it's created a lot of the problems that we're facing the United States today, and I wholeheartedly disagree with that. The church as an institution is not a person. It has no feelings. It has no morality. It has no existential existence. Right. It deserves no mercy. It deserves no compassion. It deserves no quarter.

John Larsen [00:31:38] The people who are part of that organization are human beings, and they deserve compassion. So usually when you hear my rage, it will be centered at organizations and the individuals functioning in roles driving those organizations. I'm sure Jeffrey Holland is a lovely man. If you knew him personally, I'm sure he'd be great to play canasta with. I'm sure he loves his children. I'm sure he wants for a good world. But when he acts in the role that causes such pain and suffering across the world, he is going to receive the wrath of people like me. I only speak from the heart.

John Larsen [00:32:17] I will lay my emotions out bare. And I think that's why some people like to listen to me, because I'm not really good at couching things in politically correct ways. To say it. So I would say, like all human beings, I'm a complicated person. And. But that's usually the two Johns. They both live in my heart. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:32:37] And shorthand for that, we like to say I'm Mormon Stories. And we didn't come up with this term. It's systems, not people. Let's try to be kind and compassionate to individuals, but maybe more candid with systems.

John Larsen [00:32:49] I love that. All right, let's get to the heart of the matter.

Joseph Smith's Revelations and Their Sources

John Dehlin [00:32:52] All right. And what made you think of this topic?

John Larsen [00:32:55] Well, you know, when we started the first topic, we kind of started at the beginning. One of the problems with Mormonism and a lot of things that need to be unpacked. We're seeing this today in the world when we talk about very, very complicated things like how vaccines are passed by the fda or how global policies is instituted, or how universities teach these Things are extremely complicated with a lot of moving parts and a lot of thoughts and years and years of putting things together.

John Larsen [00:33:28] So as. As it. As we try to talk about the things in Mormonism and kind of like look at what really was there. I think we said that last time. I'm really interested in what really happened. And really, people. People say. So I'm looking for our first few podcasts, really, at the beginning of the church, when this whole thing got rolling. That's why we talked about the first instance, the first vision. So the mission to the Lamanites, the first mission, or the key mission, the one that's in scripture, happened in 1830, in the fall of 1830, and crossed over into 1831. And it was very key in setting up the church as it is today.

John Larsen [00:34:07] So it's a very pivotal moment in the church that should be better understood than it is. And I think it helps illustrate how Joseph Smith Jr. The man, became Joseph Smith Jr. The prophet, because it's very clear, especially by Nauvoo, he was revered, and in New York, he was looked up to, but not in exactly the same way by most and I'm speaking generalities that grew over time until now he's reverenced as a saint, basically. And so how did we get there is part of the interesting question in Mormonism.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] I love it. Now, John, I, as I was trying to just prepare a tiny bit for this, I read a couple articles and stumbled on a couple quotes or scriptures that I don't think you planned on actually introducing that might give a tiny bit of context.

John Larsen [00:35:02] Right.

John Dehlin [00:35:02] Do you want to give some framing first?

John Larsen [00:35:03] Yeah, let's give some framing, then we can jump in and let me know

John Dehlin [00:35:06] when you want me to share those.

John Larsen [00:35:07] Sure, sure. I've been. I've been asked also online, which I think is a great ask. What are your sources? Yeah, you know, you come up here and talk ex cathedra. Where do you get this stuff? As I prepared for this, I use three sources in particular. The first one I would recommend to anybody is the Joseph Smith Revelations, text and commentary by Michael Marcotte. Mark. Mark Court, I think. Have you, if you ever met him in person.

John Dehlin [00:35:30] A little bit. Tiny bit.

John Larsen [00:35:32] He published in 1999. He goes through all of the main revelations and explains all of the modifications that were made.

John Dehlin [00:35:38] Tell us the title of that again so we can include it in the show.

John Larsen [00:35:40] The Joseph Smith Revelations, Text and commentary.

John Dehlin [00:35:43] Okay.

John Larsen [00:35:45] The other two sources I used is the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which I have a hard copy of, so I Don't know if it's been modified online and the LDS published websites. So those were my three sources I used in preparing for this.

John Larsen [00:36:02] And I think the. And that's what we want to get to is kind of where these things are and where they're at. But early Mormon history is very confusing and complicated, partly because the way it's put together, the Mormons, the standard average run of the wheel Mormon is very ignorant about Mormon history. And it's become more so. We used to have a rotation where every four years you would do the Doctrine Covenants in church history. And then they went to teachings of the teachings of the prophets.

John Larsen [00:36:32] And I'm not sure where they are now, but as I've looked at the manuals, they become thinner and thinner and thinner in terms of providing historical context, which makes reading things like the Doctrine Covenants extremely difficult. It is organized by no discernible way. And as a matter of fact, as we've had different publications. So let's go a little bit over that. 1830, Joseph Smith publishes the Book of Mormon and they kind of incorporate as a church. They have that first church meeting. And at this point they're turning their eyes to growth. They're turning their eyes. The book is published. They do that first run of 3,000 copies and they start to disseminate them.

John Larsen [00:37:09] They want to go out. And this is one of those big missions. And some of them are wildly successful, these missions. And in part this one, this mission to the Lamanites was. So we have revelations that Joseph Smith is giving at the time.

John Larsen [00:37:25] And they're very personal usually then. And we'll see these. There's Revelations, three particular revelations we're going to look at. They're calling people onto these. These missions. Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:34] Hey, John, really quick there. There's one. There's one sort of quote revelation that I have that actually came two years before the church was founded.

John Larsen [00:37:44] Right.

John Dehlin [00:37:44] Do you want me to wait to read that?

John Larsen [00:37:45] Give me. Let me finish this thought, then I'll have you read it. So. So they were all published in the Book of Commandments. Right. And the Book of Commandments came out around when the Book of Commandments was. There's an 1835 edition and there's 1833 edition, which is, by the way, if you have a copy of the 1833, it's worth millions. It's the one that was interrupted. And if you remember the story, they were actually printing it when the mobs went into Missouri. And this was the printing press that was burned down. And there were two girls, and I can't remember their name, who saved some of the manuscript.

John Larsen [00:38:22] And I know in the picture they're always carrying these great big manuscript, but the Book of Commandments itself, if you get one, it's like 4 inches tall and 3 inches wide. It's small. But so that's important, these Revelations, because we're going to talk about modifications in these Revelations. Most of Revelations were published in the Evening and Morning Star, which was published out of that same printing press in Independence.

John Larsen [00:38:42] And that is our number one source for early church documents. Some of them were published elsewhere, but then they were compiled in the Book of Commandments and then they were modified, which later became the Doctrine and Covenants, and that went through several revisions. So all the revelations that we're talking about changing, we have the original text where there were modifications either from Evening and Morning Star or from the Book of Commandments. Okay, so as queuing it up, the Book of Mormon is this story about these Jews.

John Larsen [00:39:14] There's two stories, but we'll talk about the mainline story that left Jerusalem right before it was sacked. And I think it was sacked in like 18 or 587 or something like that. The Babylonian Captivity. So it was, it was, yeah. Bce it was, it was, it was raised. And the story of the Book of Mormon is that Lehi got a revelation that it was going to happen and took his family and some others out into the Sinai Peninsula where they built a boat and went to, went to the Americas. And for much of Mormon history, the belief was that they were the progenitors of the, of the native inhabitants of America. And this is where your stuff starts coming in.

John Dehlin [00:39:53] So, okay, so, yeah, so, so Lehi and Nephi and Laman and Lemuel and those families get on a boat back over in the Middle east somewhere, they sail over to America. It's, it's unclear whether that's Central America or North America, but I think the modern LDS Church, it really needs it to be in Mesoamerica or Central America, because that's the only place where in terms of like walking time and distance and geography that even makes sense. And so in terms of the modern Mormon Church, we're talking about Mesoamerica. And these Israelites basically start building up these civilizations and eventually there's a group that breaks off that's less righteous, that becomes wicked.

John Dehlin [00:40:44] They're what the Book of Mormon refers to as Lamanites or dark skinned, cursed Native Americans versus the light skinned, white, righteous Christian Native Americans who were somehow Christian before Jesus was born. That's another podcast. But eventually the dark skinned kills off the light skinned and they become the ancestors to the modern native Americans.

John Larsen [00:41:10] Yes. And you're even using modern terminology from, from a Mormon perspective, from a 19th century Mormon perspective, they were unambiguous that Indians were Lamanites, be they wherever they were at.

John Dehlin [00:41:22] Yeah.

John Larsen [00:41:23] And. And we now say things like among or part of the ancestors. That was not a teaching of the church until actually late late 20th century.

John Dehlin [00:41:36] All right, Carah's got a cares.

Carah Burrell [00:41:37] I just wanted to read JC's comment that said so many of Joseph Smith's revelations are blatantly self serving, speaking as God in order to order his friends and family to do things. As John de Lynn says, no one should be allowed to say they speak for God. So that's JC's.

John Dehlin [00:41:55] Thanks JC.

Carah Burrell [00:41:56] I just thought that was relevant to maybe some of the racism we might be getting into here too.

John Dehlin [00:42:00] Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

John Larsen [00:42:02] Agreed.

John Dehlin [00:42:03] And if you ever want to just, if you ever want to just understand the complexities and the history of the Lamanite thing, because that was not in any way original to Joseph Smith, you just have to Google sort of mound builder myth. We've interviewed people like Thomas Murphy, like, you know, Simon Southerton and others that can go in depth. John Hamer, they can go into depth on the mound builder myth.

John Dehlin [00:42:29] It's a really important topic. We won't jump into it here. The thing that I wanted to say is that as early as 1828 we have Joseph Smith supposedly. So this is two years before the Book of Mormon is published. If you read what is now Doctrine and covenant, section three, okay, verses 19 and 20, you have a revel, a quote revelation Joseph Smith receives two years before the Book of Mormon is actually published. While he's again, I'm going to say in quotes, translating the plates into what now is the Book of Mormon. So starting with verse 19, I'm going to go and read it and you guys can see it on the screen here.

John Dehlin [00:43:07] And for this very purpose are these plates preserved which contain these records that the promises of the Lord might be fulfilled, which he made to his people. So, okay, so John Larsen, when you read this verse and God is saying for his people, what do you think he means?

John Larsen [00:43:28] So the Book of Mormon teaches that the Lamanites, again coming from Lehi's son Laman, were a fallen people that would be redeemed.

John Dehlin [00:43:38] Fallen Jews.

John Larsen [00:43:39] They were fallen Jews. And again, this is the racist part. Luckily most of this is not racist. We're talking about that they had a mark of dark skin and they were idle and full of mischievousness and that they would be redeemed. And Spencer Kimball taught very clearly, as others did, they would turn white. And he spoke in the 70s saying it was happening. So this redemption of the Lamanites is part of the story of the Book of Mormon, and that's what's being referred to there.

John Dehlin [00:44:18] Because the Jews are God's chosen people. We all know that. And so if the Lamanites, if the Native Americans or the Indians are Jews, they need to remain or be restored as God's chosen people. But if they're, quote, savages and wicked, they can't be God's chosen people. So they've got to be restored. And so that's verse 19. Do you want me to read verse 20 really quick? Okay. Verse 20 says, and that the Lamanites might come to the knowledge of their fathers, and that they might know the promises of the Lord, and that they may believe the gospel and rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ and be glorified through his faith in his name, and that through their repentance they might be saved.

John Dehlin [00:45:03] Amen. So if, if Joseph's going to go out there on a limb and say that, quote, Indians are Jews, then they've got to be restored. And so two years before the, even the printing of the Book of Mormon, Joseph is starting to get revelations about for this all to come true, we got to save the Indians or the Native Americans. But he goes even further, and this, I think is one of the most important.

John Dehlin [00:45:27] If anybody's wanting to try and decide if the Book of Mormon is, quote, true, if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is, quote, true, if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. You need to read the original title page to the Book of Mormon and I'm going to put it up here. This is the Joseph Smith Papers Project, original title page to the Book of Mormon. And we are going to be including this in the show notes. But I don't think this can ever be sort of mentioned enough because it basically states the entire purpose of the Book of Mormon, which I think has been lost today.

John Dehlin [00:46:02] But I'm going to go ahead and read it really quick. John Larsen says, the Book of Mormon, an account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi, and it says wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi and also of the Lamanites written to the Lamanites, which are a remnant of the house of Israel, and also to Jew and Gentile. Written by way of commandment, and also by the Spirit of prophecy and revelation. Written and sealed up and hid up unto the Lord that they may not be destroyed to come forth by the gift of power of God upon the interpretation thereof.

John Dehlin [00:46:35] Sealed by the hand of Moroni and hid up unto the Lord to come forth in due time by the way of the Gentile, the interpretation thereof by the gift of God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether. And here's the important part also, which is a record of the people of Jared. Oh, sorry, that's not it. Which were scattered at the time of the Lord, confounding the language. And I'm going to skip forward, which is to show unto the remnant of the house of Israel how great things the Lord hath done for their fathers that they may know know the covenants of the Lord and that they are not cast off forever.

John Dehlin [00:47:09] And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations. And now if there be fault, you know, it be the mistakes of men. And basically what the title page of the original Book of Mormon is saying is that the Book of Mormon is primarily written to convert Indians into Christians. Am I wrong, John Larsen? Am I misstating that?

John Larsen [00:47:36] That's right. And so in the original. In. In the Book of Mormon and the original teachings of the Church, there were these Gentiles who I think the early founders of the Church would see themselves as part of, who were going to come kind of graft in and help restore. But the Joseph was very Old Testament. He really liked the idea of a covenant people. And so for him, it was the restoration of the Native Americans over time that got modified in that we went from being Gentiles who were grafted in to being. To getting these patriarchal blessings where we were no, we were secretly all Jews, right? We were all from the house of Jacob. We were all the sons of Ephraim. Right? So that's the way this narrative was reclaimed because it became less important to find the Native American Jews because we were all Jews.

Carah Burrell [00:48:33] Can I. So just to clarify, what you're saying is that originally that the Native Americans were going to be grafted into the.

John Larsen [00:48:44] No, the Native American, the original. Right. They have. They had the roots.

John Dehlin [00:48:49] They were the original Jews. They were the pure blood. They were the pure blood of Israel Indians. Native Americans were the pure blood of Israel that had fallen because of their wickedness. And the Gentiles Joseph Smith led the Gentiles to restore the Native Americans as legitimate, believing God's chosen people, blood Jews.

Carah Burrell [00:49:08] So for the church, this is. It just feels like. So Joseph's idea of what he was trying to do, it needed to expand as the church expands. Right. And that's where you're saying that the patriarchal blessings and the blessing people with the House of Ephraim and different things, because now, you know, you'll find people in Indonesia and there's people in every single corner of the globe now that could be converted into the church, and they could be technically told that they're from a House of Israel.

John Dehlin [00:49:33] Yes, exactly. That's.

Carah Burrell [00:49:34] That doesn't.

John Dehlin [00:49:35] That's. That was never in spiritual lineage.

Carah Burrell [00:49:38] So it's not. Okay, spiritual.

Mormon Theology on Native Americans and Blood Lineage

John Dehlin [00:49:39] So there's blood lineage, which is the true chosen people of God, which are

John Larsen [00:49:43] Jews, of which the Smiths believed and taught that they were. The Smiths believed that they were a special line. So.

John Dehlin [00:49:49] So they were descendants of Jesus.

John Larsen [00:49:51] Yeah, there's the. There's a bunch of scriptures that Joseph is.

Carah Burrell [00:49:55] And.

John Larsen [00:49:55] And this is. I'm not trying to gloss over. This is very important, Stu. And that's why I was saying at the beginning, understanding Mormon history is you're always unpacking all these things that you've been taught that weren't there. So a modern Mormon who's only learned from the church from seminary will bring all this baggage into reading these scriptures and will interpret them in ways that aren't warranted by the text or what the originals believe themselves.

Carah Burrell [00:50:19] Oh, and we have. Sarah Newcomb is in the chat right now.

John Dehlin [00:50:21] Yay, Sarah.

Carah Burrell [00:50:22] So let me read some of her. Some of her commentary, and I'll have to write that.

John Dehlin [00:50:28] I'll just give her a shout out. Sarah Newcomb runs a platform called Lamanite Truth.

John Larsen [00:50:35] She.

John Dehlin [00:50:35] She is a Native American. She's been on Mormon stories a few times, and she's dedicated her free time as a. As a mom to supporting Native American Mormon Native Americans and ex Mormon Native Americans to help them understand better, honestly, how they've been deceived and harmed by the church. So did you want to read anything from Sarah?

Carah Burrell [00:50:55] Yeah, I'll read it in a second.

John Dehlin [00:50:56] Okay.

Carah Burrell [00:50:57] I just wanted to make sure that people kind of are grasping what was always. When I was in the church, everything was like, oh, but it's okay, because the church is expanding. But the idea of what was in the prophet Joseph Smith's head, you always like to say, he spent so little, so, so few revelations that we still actually believe in. So we should pay attention to what Joseph Smith said about this church that he was apparently restoring.

John Larsen [00:51:20] Right.

Carah Burrell [00:51:21] And that it just, it's so ironic. It's so interesting how so many things become spiritual once we have more like evidence and enough time gets away from it. And we have like less literal. Yeah, it's always less literal as time goes on.

John Larsen [00:51:31] Well, every religion, and I'm still, I'm, I'm paraphrasing Michael Pollan here a little bit. Every religion starts with mystics who have a direct experience of the divine. And then they are shepherded until they die by the priests whose job it is to interpret what the mystic said for the rest of us. So we're in the priest phase. We're out of mysticism. And the only reason I bring that up is because we have to remember that the early cities of the church, ostensibly till 1844, were a mystical phase of the church. And they need to be, they need to be engaged as such. But we also need to take seriously what they said because the priests have interpreted it to always be self serving to whatever is from the time and place.

John Larsen [00:52:13] And that's where Mormonism really, it's real Achilles heel is the priests are. By this I mean the prophets, seers and revelators and the stake presidents and bishops are always taking too much of the. What's going on right now. And so Mormonism ages really fast.

John Dehlin [00:52:27] Yeah. And my whole point in reading the Book of Mormon introduction and that revelation in DNC3 or whatever is to say if you are an orthodox believing Mormon, you have no choice but to believe that the salvation of the current modern Native Americans is one of the most important things you should be thinking about. It's literally the main reason the Book of Mormon was created. And it's literally one of the main reasons that Joseph Smith woke up in the morning and did what he did. And if you've just somehow like forgotten about Native Americans today In the modern 2021 Mormon Church, you are literally abandoning one of the main purposes of your foundational text, the Book of Mormon.

John Dehlin [00:53:11] And what Joseph Smith taught was the whole purpose of the church even being formed in the first place. And that's why Spencer B. Kimball was so passionate about the Lamanites, because he knew this. But in the modern church, we've forgotten it because we've strayed.

John Larsen [00:53:25] And you know, some of what Spencer Kimball said today is very cringy. But I was corrected by a couple of Navajo men a couple years ago who told me, you know, Spencer Kimball is, you know, down in this was down in Arizona. And they said Spencer Kimball is still revered. I want to acknowledge that Kimball really did love the natives that he worked with, which was he came from Arizona, but he was still a product of his time. And you read it and it's very patriarchal. It's very dismissive. It's very sort of of we know best for you. But I do want to acknowledge the good word could exist. I think Kimball had a good heart. Yeah, I think he did care.

John Dehlin [00:54:10] What were you gonna say?

Carah Burrell [00:54:11] I just wanted to read Sarah's comment. I finally scroll up and I was able to find it and she said, redemption infers indigenous were fallen and bad. Indigenous religions were viewed as invalid. Indigenous ways of spiritual ceremony are still viewed and taught as incorrect traditions. And so, John, I just wanted to add to what you were saying about like, don't forget that this is foundational to the way that the church was founded. And there are ramifications, obviously, but there are still so much hurt and things that are taught as incorrect and invalid in even LDS Native American cultures to this point. And so I, I posted in this.

Carah Burrell [00:54:49] We'll put this in the show notes as well. It's in the chat. Sarah Newcome and, and Monica Crowfoot. We had a really good panel with them just a couple months ago. So I put that in the chat for people to go check out. And obviously we are a bunch of white people talking about these things. And I just want to make sure to elevate Sarah's voice and make sure to send people back to their great panel that we had a couple months ago.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] So glad you've. Thank you, Karen. So glad you've joined us online. Gerardo's also joining us in the, in the chats along with.

Carah Burrell [00:55:18] Oh, yeah, he heard.

John Dehlin [00:55:20] All right. All right, John. So with that, we've got a couple more scriptures.

The New Jerusalem and the Lamanite Prophecy

John Larsen [00:55:23] That's a great background. Doctrine Covenants 4920 24. But before the Great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilderness and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose. And this is usually the, this, this teaching is all throughout the Book of Mormon. We'll pull some. And it's usually couched in weird Book of Mormon language with the remnants of Jacob and stuff like that. But we're talking about the remnants of the descendants of the Nephites and Lamanites. And it's probably for people who haven't read the book or haven't read it very carefully. The Lamanites and Nephites get mixed up when Jesus visits the new world.

John Larsen [00:55:59] And so the distinction becomes more symbolic than genetic. So before Christ, it's because all the people live together in peace and harmony, according to the Book of Mormon, for 300 years. And then they descend again into their camps and ostensibly get another skin of darkness. And then, of course, in the 5th century, the Lamanites wipe out the Nephites, the last of them.

John Larsen [00:56:24] Okay, so. And there's another little thread that goes on. We talked about Joseph Smith that, you know, he believed that the Lamanites need to be converted and that they would be converted, but he also believed in the establishment of the new Jerusalem. Now, this is another one we have to unpack.

John Larsen [00:56:40] For Joseph Smith, this was a literal, real place. And the temple lot is still where it is in Independence, Missouri, which is about 15 miles outside of Kansas City.

John Dehlin [00:56:54] Because if there's an old Jerusalem, which has fallen right in Joseph Smith's day, and at the time, it wasn't even controlled by Israel. Right. That wasn't until after World War II where the nation of Israel was formed

John Larsen [00:57:09] by the U.N. yeah, in 1948.

John Dehlin [00:57:11] So back in the 1800s, the Jews didn't even really necessarily control Israel. So in Joseph's mind, there needs to be a new Jerusalem that's going to be here in America. So if we're doing our job as Mormons, and for all you preppers out there, Mormon preppers that think Jesus is coming, he ain't coming until the Lamanites are blossoming like a rose in Independence, Missouri. I mean, that is what Joseph Smith made very clear. He's going to restore the Native Americans as the pure blood of Israel, as believers in Jesus. And he's going to congregate or organize them in Independence, and they are going

John Larsen [00:57:45] to help build the new Jerusalem.

John Dehlin [00:57:47] They'll help build it.

John Larsen [00:57:48] This is a key teaching of the Book of Mormon. I've got 3rd Nephi 21 here. There's three verses. Three Nephi 21, 22, 23, and 24, for those who want to follow along in the church's site. But if they will repent and hearken unto my words and harden not their hearts, I will bestow my church among them. And they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this, the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance. They meaning in that case, this gets ambiguous. The Book of Mormon is terrible with pronouns. You have to map out every pronoun, but they meaning the Gentiles who will join the remnant of the house of Jacob.

John Larsen [00:58:28] Who are the Native Americans for the land of inheritance? Verse 23. And they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob. And also as many of the house of Israel shall come, they may build a city which shall be called the New Jerusalem.

John Larsen [00:58:43] And they shall assist my people that they may be gathered in who are scattered upon the face of the land unto the New Jerusalem. So the gathering of Israel, which the church now is symbolic, was not symbolic at all. It was very literal. And I didn't want to get into this. We kind of want to stay focused. There is one of these revelations where Joseph, and it's an unpublished revelation, says that the New Jerusalem will be built among the Lamanites. But in most of his revelations, he says it will be built on the border next to the Lamanites.

John Larsen [00:59:19] And we'll come to that a little bit more. I've got a couple other statements that help us understand this. This is from the proclamation of the twelve apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that was published in a pamphlet, April 6, 1845, the year after Joseph died. They will also come to the knowledge of their forefathers and of the fullness of the gospel, and they will embrace it, become a righteous branch of the house of Israel. Referring to. Referring to Native Americans.

John Larsen [00:59:45] This next statement comes from the History of the Church, book 2, page 357. One of the most important points in the faith of the Church of Latter Day Saints through the fullness of the everlasting Gospel, is the gathering of Israel, of whom the Lamanites constitute a part.

John Larsen [01:00:02] So very clear that the Lamanites have to be part of the gathering of Israel, and then we'll skip that. So I think anybody who's read the Book of Horns sees very well this ark. Moroni harps on it a lot, that there's going to be this restoration of the people and restoration in. In the last days. We've. I think we've kind of established that one, right?

John Dehlin [01:00:20] Yeah, I think so. And I can hear an orthodox Mormon saying, well, yeah, we've got. We've got. We've got Mormon missions today in New Mexico and in Arizona. So we're doing it. We're, you know, we're converting the Native Americans to Jesus and we're fulfilling Joseph Smith's prophecy. I guess the only thing I would say there is, if you look at the. The growth of those missions and the success of conversion rates of Native Americans to Mormonism, I think it's anemic and paltry and shrinking, not growing. And so those Prophecies of us of quote, the laymanites blossoming as a rose are not only racist, they're not coming true by any objective standard.

John Larsen [01:01:00] Well, and, and if you read in the late 70s, I wish I'd prepared which year it was when George P. Lee was made a 70, he was, he was the first Native American. I think he was general authority.

John Dehlin [01:01:14] Yeah, yeah.

John Larsen [01:01:14] He was either Navajo or Hopi. I'm not, I'm not sure. I apologize. But I, he, he became a general authority. George Peeley's story is very tragic on, on many, many levels. He was later excommunicated and his, his life kind of fell apart as you can imagine it would being a disgraced general authority among Mormons. But at the time that was seen as, as proof positive that, that, that these revelations were being fulfilled. So under the Kimball regime. Is that what we call them? That sounds.

John Dehlin [01:01:45] Administration. Regime.

John Larsen [01:01:48] Administration. The story of the redemption of Lamanites was very important. And of course the Mormon Church took place heavily in the same problems we're seeing up in Canada and other places in the United States. These boarding schools. The idea was that a very racist idea mid late 20th century that the Lamanites or the Native Americans were the way they were because they were being taught the traditions of their fathers. So there was a concerted effort by the Canadian government, by the US Government, by the Mormon Church, among others, the Catholic Church, to take the children away from their parents and put them up in boarding schools.

John Larsen [01:02:32] Of course, you follow the news over the past year or two, we've had some horrific discoveries of just hundreds and hundreds of bodies of these children being buried around these places. We had a giant boarding school that was in Brigham City. Unfortunately they tore it down because it's really probably sacred ground. But there was a naval hospital built in Brigham City during the war and after that that was gifted became a boarding school for Native Americans in Utah. I wasn't the only ones, but we participated in that cultural genocide.

Carah Burrell [01:03:03] It's ridiculous.

John Dehlin [01:03:04] And we actually do have an episode on Mormon Stories podcast on the Indian placement program.

John Larsen [01:03:09] We.

John Dehlin [01:03:09] I just linked to it in the show notes. We'll make sure and redistribute that. But it's a really important, dark, sad, racist part of our super racist history, I guess.

The 1830 Mission to the Lamanites Begins

John Larsen [01:03:18] So let's talk about, let's talk about the actual mission. So in The September of 1830, they were having. At this time they're still Upper State New York. Joseph has had some success and they have a small group of believers probably numbering in the hundreds at this point, and there's a lot of other things going on in these sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. We're going to read about Oliver Cowdery. But Oliver Cowdery at this time was considered the second elder. And if you remember in the appearances, it was Joseph and Oliver. So in the early days, Oliver was the number two man. And that's going to come up again.

John Larsen [01:03:57] And also Joseph Smith had instituted a religion of direct revelation, in fact, using objects. They all knew, everybody in the church knew that Joseph used a peep stone. It wasn't a secret, it was a holy act. Well, actually, if you read the beginning of section 28, where we're going to start the story, the first verses have to do with Hyrum Page, who was one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, had used his own peep stone and had received some revelations from the Church.

John Larsen [01:04:24] So Joseph, first this revelation, he's nipping that in the bud and he's saying, hey, basically only I can get revelations. But now he's going to send Oliver Cowdery on a mission. And this is Doctrine and Covenants, chapter 28, verse 8.

John Dehlin [01:04:38] That's the modern Doctrine and Covenants.

John Larsen [01:04:40] Yeah, I'm using. Yeah, I told John this was. I sent him some numbers earlier. Every time they publish the Doctrine and Covenants or the Book of Commandments, they reorder everything, give them new numbers. So you can get really confused. If you go look in the Book of Commandments for Section 28, it's not there. It's Section 51 in the book of Commandments.

John Dehlin [01:04:58] And just to be clear, part of the reason why they had to always change the section numbers and verse numbers is because they had to remove prophecies that didn't come to pass. And that's one of the main reasons you've got so much jumbling of chapters and verses of the Doctrine and Covenants Book of the Commandments earlier. True or not true?

John Larsen [01:05:16] Absolutely true. And one of the reasons Doctrine and Covenants is so hard to read is we're going to have four guys called on a mission. And it lives in three different sections of the Book of Commandments. And if you don't know what you're reading, it's not exactly clear. But you got to remember these are all like 20 guys sitting around in a room. So for them, it wasn't like General Conference being aired over closed caption TV.

John Larsen [01:05:42] They're right there. So in September of 1830, the Doctrine Covenants 288 was revealed to Joseph Smith that Oliver Cowdery the second elder was going to go on a mission to the Lamanites with the intent of converting the Lamanites. And we're going to come back in a little bit. I'm going to go over the mission. We're going to come back to the exact text. So bear with me that we're not reading the text yet at the same time. Doctrine Covenants 30, it was probably either the same day or the next day they were having this weekend conference.

John Larsen [01:06:14] Peter Whitmer Jr. Also one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, was called to accompany Oliver. And then in October, so a month later, Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson were called to go on the same mission. So, and that calling occurs in 32. So you have the three divine callings in section 28, section 30 and section 32. And you alluded to this a little bit earlier, John. There's not that many sections of the Doctrine Covenants. Right, right.

John Dehlin [01:06:43] So the gospel, 40, 150 total.

John Larsen [01:06:45] Not even that. I think it's 128 or whatever. I mean, the, the depends on which church and which sect you're in.

John Dehlin [01:06:51] Right.

John Larsen [01:06:51] And, and, you know, and, and, and which ones, which ones are current because they, they come and go sometimes.

John Dehlin [01:06:55] But for our non Mormon listeners who've never been Mormon, we're Talking about like 140 on average total sections of the Doctrine and Covenants. And so you just mentioned three, three

John Larsen [01:07:06] of them devoted to this mission to the Lamanites. Right. This one mission to the Lamanites that we're talking about here. And there wasn't that much. I've lamented that Joseph Smith wrote a lot of stuff and said we don't have access to that much. But very little of it has been canonized. This has been canonized repeatedly as scripture.

John Larsen [01:07:29] So God in 1830 restores the church. This is the Mormon narrative. And think about everything that's happened to humanity. The 1830s, God opens a window for just a short time because there's only like what, two, three revelations post Joseph Smith in the. We'll have to look that up.

John Larsen [01:07:47] Most of the revelations are not only from Joseph Smith, they're from the early period of the church. They're not even from Nauvoo. So God restores the gospel that's going to take us through industrialization, mechanization, modern warfare, chemical warfare, you know, carbon poisoning, the, the, the, you know, the, the melting ice caps. Everything, everything that's going on right now, God knew, according to Mormons in 1830. And this is what he gave us. So I'm not trying to make fun of God. I'm saying if you believe this stuff, you got to pay very close attention to what I'm saying. Because God was very, very sparse with his instructions, his canonized instructions to us in the modern world. And more important than talking about how to deal with plagues or wars, he wanted to talk about this particular mission in three sections.

Carah Burrell [01:08:40] Right when people are getting, like, tuberculosis and nobody knew how to clean their water yet. Like, if he really wanted the people to. If he really wanted the people to succeed, Germ theory, that would be a great drop in the dnc.

John Larsen [01:08:54] Yeah, boil your water.

John Dehlin [01:08:56] Instead, he's saying, we gotta get these Native Americans to believe in Jesus again, so let's figure out how to do that.

John Larsen [01:09:03] So I believe in, as we're doing our, you know, like I've said, I'm the crappiest Sunday school teacher in the church. So if you want to follow along, I would invite you to open up, like, Google Maps or get yourself an atlas in the United States. It'll make what I'm talking about in the next couple minutes a little bit easier to follow. So they are in Upper State New York, and these four guys set out and they head towards Buffalo first. So they're heading east, and there they go and they try their first incursion with the Cattaraugus tribe of the Seneca. Seneca were part of the Iroquois nation.

John Larsen [01:09:41] And we are going to come back to the Iroquois in a future podcast. I've done a lot of research on this. I want to talk about it. It's very important. So I want to put a pin in that, dear listener, that we're going to come back and talk about the Iroquois a lot more. So the first group of natives of aboriginal Americans that they come up to are these Iroquois. Now, I did not write in my notes exactly what they did. They oftentimes, I think they gave them two copies of the Book of Mormon. And of course, these people, the Iroquois, were a defeated people at this time.

John Larsen [01:10:14] Defeated, bloody, defeated, violently. Had their lands taken, everything. And so there were remnants and pockets of them at Joseph Smith's time around the area, certain reservations and communities. And this is one of them. So when white man came into their encampments, they were oftentimes at this point, very deferential. And they would write in their journal, oh, they listened to us, and they seemed to think we were saying was. Was really great. And we gave him two Book of Mormons. And we feel like the spirit of God was there. Fair enough. But by their fruits, we shall know them. None of these things we're going to talk about produced any converts to the church among the.

John Larsen [01:10:56] Among the natives. Okay. At that point, they begin to pass through Ohio, Okay. And they come onto the outskirts of Cleveland. They meet up with some Campbellites, and the Campbellite. The whole thing, the whole movement is too much to get into in this podcast. But Sidney Rigdon was a disciple of Campbell, and they had a movement that actually has lots of the early teachings of the church, the modifications that happened in the Kirtland era. Many of them are found in Campbellite philosophy and Campbellite religion.

John Larsen [01:11:35] But there was a conversion that happened. Now, I will give acknowledge, even though I do not believe this theory. There are those who believe that Rigdon had hooked up with Smith earlier and that Rigdon had helped write the Book of Mormon. I have read it. I have looked at it. I personally, John Larsen, reject that theory. I don't think it makes sense, and I don't think the Book of Mormon is that good. I think you guys trying to prove how Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. He just wrote it. It's kind of crappy.

John Dehlin [01:12:04] John Hamer agrees with you.

John Larsen [01:12:05] Yeah, Hamer's one of the smartest guys I know.

John Dehlin [01:12:08] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:12:08] Yeah, he agrees with it. So the Campbellites joined, and that's where Kirtland, it was already a Campbellite settlement. And in fact, they baptize a grundle of people, including Frederick G. Williams, who joins them on this mission. So, and this is the first point to we always have to address what the apologists will say. And there's a couple of different points they're going to make. One of them they make is the mission to the Lamanites was successful because it did two things in particular. It marked the first mission to the Campbellites, who became the Kirtland settlement. And it set up the Missouri settlement of what would later become Independence, Adam

The Mission's Failure and Its Significance

John Dehlin [01:12:51] on Diamond, which also eventually failed. Can I just summarize? I want to just make this point really clear. So Joseph Smith invested at least three sections of the Doctrine and Covenants and the title page of the Book of Mormon to basically declare that we're going to go full bore. One of the main purposes of the Restoration is to convert Indians or Native Americans to Jesus. He sends three of his top lieutenants, and there's only like 20 members at the time. He sends three of them to Indian territory to convert them to Christianity.

John Dehlin [01:13:27] Nobody converts. None of the Indians or Native Americans convert. And the only thing that happens is, is that a bunch of white people in Kirtland, Illinois actually end up converting. So it's funny that the whole revelatory mission to the Indians only results in the conversion of white people. And that somehow that's, you know, that's, that's a success and not a total failure.

John Dehlin [01:13:55] And it in no way besmirches Joseph Smith's reputation as a prophet, Syrian revelator. That, that the, that basically the mission to the Native Americans was a total failure. It only resulted in the conversion of white people.

John Larsen [01:14:09] Absolute failure. And, and it's, it's a good point. We're going to return to it near, near the end.

John Dehlin [01:14:13] All right, can I, can I just quickly mention, are you going to be mentioning the polygamy or have you not talked about that?

John Larsen [01:14:19] No, I thought it was outside scope, but you can, you can, you can mention.

John Dehlin [01:14:22] I'm just gonna just say I'm reading from the Fair Mormon website here. Many people may or may not know that the original, the first mention of polygamy as sanctioned by Joseph Smith actually happens in connection to this mission of the Native Americans to the Ohio Indian Territory. And if you read on FairMormon's own website, now it's fair Latter Day Saint, you will read the following. The only contemporary report of a possible revelation on marriage with the Indians was written in a letter to the Ohio Star on 8th of December 1831 by Ezra Booth, who had apostatized from the church. Later this letter was republished in Ed Howe's anti book, Mormonism Unveiled.

John Dehlin [01:15:07] I'm not going to call that an anti Mormon book, even though Fair Mormon wants us to. But here's the quote. It has been made known by revelation. So this is one of Joseph Smith's contemporaries, right? Who was a missionary sent to the Indians.

John Dehlin [01:15:21] It has been made known by revelation that it will be pleasing to the Lord. So we're quoting Joseph Smith here. It will be pleasing to the Lord should they form a matrimonial alliance with the natives and by this means the elders who comply with the thing so pleasing to the Lord and for which the Lord has promised to bless those who do it abundantly gain a residence in the Indian territory independent of the agent, blah, blah, blah. And so, just to kind of summarize, Joseph Smith sends these white dudes who are married to the Indian territory and gives them permission to marry and have sex with the Native Americans as polygamous wives.

John Dehlin [01:16:05] And that's the first instance we have of Joseph Smith approving of polygamy in the instance of sort of, you Know this missionary work, right.

John Larsen [01:16:13] And that of course is not canonized in the current DNC or mentioned by the modern church. There's another head scratcher that's gonna come up in a minute when they get down there. And I do want to point out that Joseph had in the revelation had them going to the western states. And this is where it's important to understand American history at the time. The western states would have been considered by people at the time. Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.

John Dehlin [01:16:38] Right.

John Larsen [01:16:39] On the other side was Indian territory. They were not states. So when they're going into the western states where there were, there were still tribes in these areas, but they were broken at the time. We were the United States. And I'm sorry, all you crt weeping people at the time, the United States, we were systemically removing natives from the lands. There were millions and millions of Native Americans. I read one estimate that there were 50 million Aboriginal Americans living in America when, when Plymouth Rock showed up. Big civilization, cities, all that kind of stuff. And they had to, they had to be deposed and removed from, from, from the lands. So at this time they'd been mostly principally cleared off of the western states. And then they were further west, which was Indian territory.

John Dehlin [01:17:32] Carah?

Carah Burrell [01:17:33] Yeah, I wanted to read Joffrey, our Hollands. You just put it on the screen. I'll. Do you want to put it back? That said, so God curse people with dark skin so that they don't mix with the whites and then reverse that so Broseph, short for Brother Joseph, can start practicing polygamy. Where's the rationale there?

John Dehlin [01:17:55] Yeah, and it's got to be that, you know, you send these married guys off on missions, they're. They're not going to be having sex with their wives for months and months and months. But they've got to live, quote the law of chastity, so you got to give them permission to get their release. And so you're basically just saying, ah, you know, those, those Native American women, it's fine, you can sort of get what you need through them, but it's gotta be sanctioned by God. So Joseph will get a revelation, basically.

John Larsen [01:18:19] Well, it. Through the 18th century and before, I mean, does. It's not a hard leap into American history. Slave owners were, were given a free pass to this day that slave owners could have sex and procreate with their slaves. And it was not seen as a moral failing. And of course, the real tragedy of slavery, or not the real tragedy, there's many, many one of the tragedies of slavery from A, from a Native perspective, from an aboriginal American perspective, is it's been largely erased. The slave trade in the United States involved principally Africa after about the 17th century, Africans who were imported for that purpose and aboriginal Americans. And so it was common practice for white plantation owners to take what they

John Dehlin [01:19:05] wanted and Mormon missionaries.

John Larsen [01:19:07] And it was so. So the idea of these white guys having secondary Indian wives and siring children off of them would not be as repugnant as it is today. And I have to bring up this thought again because it's important to understand Mormon history. If you go into Mormon cemeteries in Utah, you will not find the graves of these American, these children that were sired by Mormon men and their Indian Ute Paiute wives because they wouldn't allow them to be buried. So. So true history has to be dug up a little bit.

John Dehlin [01:19:43] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:19:44] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:19:44] Yeah, absolutely.

The Missionaries' Journey and the Indigenous Communities They Met

John Larsen [01:19:46] So the. The next thing. So. So Kirtland is. Is just about 20, 30 miles straight east of. Of Cleveland. So from Kirtland, they leave and they head out to Sandusky where they meet the Wyandit Indian band. So this is. This is the second Indian band they. They go and preach to.

John Larsen [01:20:10] And with no success at this point, they head due south to Cincinnati and no more success. They don't have any, Any. Any conversion from Cincinnati. They jumped the Ohio. Now, remember that they started their mission in October, so it's starting to get cold. And this winter of 1830 was one that was particularly rough. So these guys had a hard time. They sell down to Cairo, and Cairo is. If you look on your map, you won't really find it. It is where the Mississippi hits the Ohio. So when they, when they get down to Cairo, they. They're iced over. They were heading to St. Louis is where their original plans were, out of Cincinnati.

John Larsen [01:20:55] And at that point, they. They couldn't head back up the Mississippi to St. Louis. So they start walking overland and they end up heading to, you know, heading to Kansas City and end up in Independence. Missouri is where they stop.

John Larsen [01:21:11] And by there's some different accounts, it looks like they made it there about January 15th in the dead of winter. So these poor schmucks, these five guys, they slogged, you know, all the way across the state of Missouri to get to Kansas City.

John Larsen [01:21:27] At this point, they are tired. Now, it's pretty clear that they knew they needed to head to this area because on the other side of the Mississippi and the. Whichever river that is up there, it was. Was full Indian territory. It'd been gifted by the U.S. government. And you weren't supposed to go into it because we, at this point, we'd had 300 years of white settler harassment on Indians. And there were many times in the early history of the United States it was perfectly legal. Just kill an Indian.

John Larsen [01:22:01] You could meet one walking along thing, kill him, take a trophy and turn it in for a bounty off the actual history is very disgusting on that route. So it's not like everybody was a monster at this time. There were people trying to protect the natives, and that's the situation we had down in Kansas City.

John Larsen [01:22:23] Okay, so their mission, first of all, we talked about the failure of the mission. They hit these tribes, these Seneca tribes up in Ohio and Upper state New York that were still around, no success. They end up going down the routes and taking a barge or whatever down the Ohio. They don't meet any Indians at all. There's. There's. There's nobody there. And if they talk to any, they record zero success. And then they get to Missouri. So they arrive there in late winter. At that point, Whitmer and Peterson kind of pull off the group and they open up a tailor shop for. I'm sure they're hungry and they're tired and they're like, I don't know what those conversations were.

John Larsen [01:22:59] Like, hey, I'm gonna, like, start making vests. I've had enough of pursuing. Pursuing the Indians. I don't know what they said. They both remained faithful for after this. It's not like they left the church.

John Dehlin [01:23:08] I think I read that they had to get jobs to support the other missionaries.

John Larsen [01:23:13] I'm sure they did, you know, because it's, you know, say, oh, they travel out purse or script. These guys were not like real big wealthy people, which is why people like Martin Harris and when they came into the Kirtland community, where there was already wealth had been established, then it really gave a boost to the church.

John Larsen [01:23:29] So in Independence, they first contact some Shawnee who are living somewhere around the area. I'm not exactly sure before they cross the river, and then they cross the Kansas river and they enter illegally into Indian territory. They knew they weren't supposed to do it. They knew it was criminal, and they did it anyway. So when they get over there, they find some chiefs in the Delaware Nation, and they kind of preach to them and give them some books.

John Larsen [01:24:01] And at this point, it's the Delaware Nation territory. But there had been refugee Indians from all over the Eastern seaboard and the Midwestern states that had been pushed into what is now Kansas. Right. And we saw this in the News like last year because we're only a few miles up above Oklahoma or below Oklahoma, wherever it is. And was it Tulsa that the Supreme Court ruled recently is in Indian Territory that this is treatied land that had been given to the Indians. And just the fact that for 100 years we ignored the treaty and did whatever we want didn't matter. So these things, I bring that up that this arrangement is still in the courts today.

John Larsen [01:24:40] This is very important. So these guys weren't just in some abstract going to some wigwam or whatever. These were real people and these were, these were indigenous people who had suffered for centuries. Now that these guys were going in and waving this book around and they must have just seemed really strange.

John Larsen [01:25:00] Cowdery wrote that he had two interviews with the chief of the Delawares, who was very old and venerable looking man. He says we were well received. But how the matter will go with this tribe to me is unclear. Neither I can presently conclude much about it. So the, the Indians give them, give them, you know, a platform to talk and they thank them for their gifts and they send them on their way.

John Dehlin [01:25:22] Yeah, the natives don't even speak English. So you have to imagine these white, you know, New Yorkers or whatever showing up on Indian territory with this book in English where they're trying to use translators to explain to them that the book is about their ancestors. And you know, all this time the European settlers are basically displacing and kicking the Native Americans off their territory. And you know, it's basically becomes an act of genocide. And so it's got to just be this really bizarre thing to have these Native Americans displaced from their land, entertaining these New Englanders to talk about this book that they can't even read because it's not even in their language. It's, it's kind of, I think an absurd dark comedy could be created in Hollywood just about that setting. If you even tried to imagine it.

John Larsen [01:26:14] It is, it is absolutely absurd. And you have these people who are refugees who have lost their land, their way of life, their economy. They've all lost loved ones and children. I mean, they were forcibly removed oftentimes in the winter and they had suffered from cholera and malaria and all sorts of things. And then these guys come hip hopping in and they say, hey, you great people in your culture, I want you to know that none of it's true. You're actually Jews. And we have the history of your people right here. Everything, you know, everything you believe, everything that identifies you as you. We already took your land and Your, and your economy and all that away. Now we're going to take away your culture. I can't imagine why this didn't work.

Carah Burrell [01:26:58] Can I add something really quick? One of my favorite books is the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger. And I don't know if I pronounced his name, last name right. And the first half of the book. Have you read this book, that book Tribe? It's one of my all time favorites. And he talks a lot about, in the first half of the book about how the white settlers came on the scene and they just assumed that like, oh, because we have so much that the natives obviously want to get what we have. And what ended up happening if people don't know is that a lot of white people would run away to be with the Native Americans and it never went the other way around.

Carah Burrell [01:27:33] And there's this really funny quote from Benjamin Franklin who wrote to a friend in 1758 that white captives who were liberated from Indians were almost impossible to keep at home, though ransomed by their friends, were treated with imaginal, unimaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English. Yet in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life and take the first good opportunity escaping again into the woods.

John Dehlin [01:27:59] Interesting.

Carah Burrell [01:28:00] And so, so many people wanted to go to be with these, this tribal culture. Somebody in the comments mentioned how that, why would people want to go to this new, you know, version of Christianity when so many native cultures have a higher version of spirituality? They have a higher level of tribal organization and communal living and ethical living. Yeah. And so I just wanted to get that across that like, like, it's just kind of funny breaking that down in the wider context. Not just Joseph Smith and Mormonism, but generally speaking, in America, around the foundation of our country. The way that white people like to think of ourselves as superior was actually quite backwards and people were, were actually escaping to go live with these native cultures.

John Dehlin [01:28:37] Yeah. Thank you, Carah. This whole story feels like a colonial farce.

John Larsen [01:28:42] Well, and you know, not only that, I, I think I've read that book. I read some of the other things, like something as simple as hygiene. I mean the, the phrase dirty Indian is something that I heard when I was a kid in the 70s and 80s, but you can read about the hygiene practices of the natives versus the colonialists. And that was one of the things they said. Like, like the, the, the natives were oftentimes disgusted about how they, how the colonialists kept their animal feces and how they, they lived. And that was, I know, in Some of the accounts, especially women. Women who would get kidnapped or taken over by the, you know, the Iroquois or the.

John Larsen [01:29:18] The Pawnee or whatever, they. They would not want to go back, and they would escape over and over again to go back to the Indians. And that was, you know, one of the things they would say. Like the. The. The colonial places were full of disease and they were dirty and they were, you know. Yeah, it just. It's just a. It's a. It's a. The people. The people who win history tend to oftentimes turn the narrative exactly reverse. And when you're reading things, always be careful about what you're reading. You know, it might be that they're pushing their own sins onto you.

John Dehlin [01:29:45] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:29:46] Okay, so the federal Indian agent who was in charge of this area was a dude named Richard Cummins. And he actually wrote. And he. We have what they wrote about him, and we have what he wrote. And I read through all this stuff to prepare for this, and it was really quite. He's like, these guys came down here, they wanted to preach. They were kind of like, you know, he accuses him of a little bit of hubris. Like, we have to talk to them. They have to hear our thing.

John Larsen [01:30:11] And he tells them, when he kicks them off that they need permission from General William Clark, who's in St. Louis, who is the general in charge of Indian affairs throughout the West. And Cummins actually writes to General Clark about these guys. And we have the letter, and we have no response from General Clark historically. So we. We know they weren't granted permission because there's no record of it, but it never came to anything.

John Dehlin [01:30:37] So let me get this straight. Joseph Smith receives a revelation, invests at least three sections of the Doctrine and Covenants to call these men to go preach to the Indians. They get there, they violate the law by going illegally into this territory that they're not supposed to be in. And the result is they're told they shouldn't be there. It's illegal. They need to go away and get off the property. And that's the fulfillment of Joseph's revelation. Is that what you're saying?

John Larsen [01:31:05] And the Indians, they ran into, you know, the Seneca ones up. Up in Ohio and the Pawnee or the Shawnee down in. Down in Missouri, that none of them, nothing came of it. You know, and then, of course, when we come out to the Rocky Mountains, and this is a good point, in the letter that Cummins writes to General William Clark, he says that these guys told him that if they couldn't talk to these Indians, they were going to go on to the Rocky Mountains. So the idea of the Rocky Mountains as a place.

John Larsen [01:31:40] We probably should do a whole podcast. Joseph Smith talked about going to the Rocky Mountains all the time. In Modern Mormon or the Myth of Utah, is Brigham Young rolling up to this place and saying, this is the right place. Like, it was just some. They were always heading there.

John Larsen [01:31:57] They would console people and have maps. They knew where they were going. Right. And it was early. So not only did Joseph Smith in 1830 have the idea that polygamy would be ensued, he clearly had the idea that we were gonna head to the Rocky Mountains. Right.

John Dehlin [01:32:12] And I should mention he was okay with Native Americans being concubines because the Old Testament allows concubines with David and Solomon and others. Yeah, take a few women on the side as long as they're dark skinned.

John Larsen [01:32:24] So. So that's the failed mission to the. The Lamanites. It is. It is a farce. Like you said, they really spend most of their time, like, just traveling out, out to independence. But I mentioned that the. The apologists say there's two successful things. First, the, like, I talked about the conversion of Kirtland and then the establishment of the church colony down in Independence. Of course, that lasted till about 1834 when they were driven out and they went up to the. To Davies county and Adam on diamond until they were driven out of that in 1838, 1839, and then they end up at Nauvoo till they were driven out of that place in 1844 until they went to Salt Lake City. We've yet to drive the Mormons out of Salt Lake.

John Dehlin [01:33:08] It is so funny that. Even a revelation with good intentions about helping Native Americans can only be defined as successful within Mormonism by what it did for white people. So the. So Joseph's prophecy regarding the Native Americans was successful because white people were converted.

John Larsen [01:33:31] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [01:33:35] Right, Carah.

Carah Burrell [01:33:36] I mean, that's just like modern colonialism in general. Like, you know, whether it's a Mormon missionary or Christian missionary going to Africa or anywhere else, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, maybe you didn't convert anyone, but like, now you're like the convert, right?

John Larsen [01:33:47] It really is the thing. Hey, we're going to send the Jesuit to Mesoamerica to convert the Maya. And by the way, look at all this gold we found. It's just laying around, you know. Okay, so let's return to the revelations. I kind of teased it and this is the reason I actually decided to do this podcast.

Alterations to the Doctrine and Covenants

John Larsen [01:34:05] Okay. Doctrine Covenants 28 8. There are two versions of this, of this Doctrine Covenants. There's the first one that was published in the Book of Commandments and an evening and morning star. Then there's the one that you all have. Have today.

John Larsen [01:34:19] And what the, what the. What the. What it says right now is. And now behold, I say unto you. This is calling Oliver Cowdery to go preach to the Lamanites. And now behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them. And inasmuch as they receive the teachings, thou shalt cause. Thou shalt cause my church to be established among them, and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment. Okay. Inasmuch as they receive thy teachings, thou shalt cause my church to be established. It's agency of the. Of the natives. Right? The. We can't.

John Larsen [01:34:59] We can't. We can't predict anything else. That's not what the revelation said when Joseph gave it. That phrase was added. The original revelation in the Book of Commandments says, and now behold, I say unto you that you shall go into the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them. And caused my church to be established among them.

John Larsen [01:35:19] So one of the things that Mormons struggle with when it comes time to abandon the church is the fact that Joseph Smith was prophetic. He had all these bullseyes, as my old friend Corbin used to like to talk about.

John Larsen [01:35:37] And so it was hard to dismiss Joseph Smith for believers because how did he predict all of these things? How did he have these revelations? Well, my contention when we look at D&C 28, is he didn't. He modified the revelation after the fact to give him fudge room. The statement that you shall go to the Lamanites and preach my gospel and cause my church to be established among them as a revelation from God. Joseph Smith, speaking in the voice of God is very clear and unambiguous that he's supposed to. To preach the gospel and establish the church. Number one of the two clauses there, he barely accomplished maybe D minus work.

John Larsen [01:36:22] Number two, fail. The church was not established among the Lamanites at all. This revelation is a clear miss. And is a clear indication that Joseph Smith could not prophecy, could not prophesy, at least for as far as this goes. Now let's look at the next one, verse 10 in the same. So that's verse eight. We're going to skip down to verse 10. Thou shalt not leave this place until after the conference. And my servant Joseph shall appoint to preside over the conference by the voice of it. And when he saith to thee, thou shalt tell, the original one said, rule over.

John Larsen [01:37:03] And Joseph shall be appointed a rule over the conference. So Joseph, it's not necessarily related directly to this experience, but it shows how they manipulated the Revelation. The first Revelation gave Joseph Smith the authority to rule over the conference. And the conference wouldn't be considered to be the two days that he's there. It'd be considered to be the people who are part of that conference. He was established by Revelation. He the ruler. People would read that later and say, oh, come on. So they went and scratched it out and put Preside over. Okay, DNC 30, verse five and six. We're going to pick it up in verse six.

John Larsen [01:37:40] And be you, and be you afflicted in all afflictions, even lifting your hearts unto me in prayer and faith for his and your deliverance. For I have given unto him power to build up my church among your brethren, the Lamanites. That's what your doctrine Covenant says, right now. I have given unto him power to build up my church among your brethren, the Lamanites.

John Larsen [01:38:04] So what that's saying is he has the power to do it, to build up the church, and the Lamanites are your brethren. Okay? So the word power was inserted and the word your brethren was deleted. So what? The original Revelation would say, I have given unto him to build up my church among the Lamanites. Among your brethren, the Lamanites. The. The brethren makes the Lamanites seem like they're part of the congregation. They're part of the church. They're part of the conference. They're your brethren. So they scrapped that phrase. And then they instituted the phrase power rather than say, for I've given unto him to build up my church.

John Larsen [01:38:50] That's what God is saying. This is the person that will build up my church among the Lamanites. That's what the original Revelation said. No one built up the church among the Lamanites. So they inserted that tricky little word power right there.

John Larsen [01:39:02] I give unto you the power to stop the storms. The storm comes, and you say, well, he's not a prophet because he has the power to stop. I had the power to stop the storm, but I didn't actually stop the storm. And that's the tricky thing they're doing right there in that verse, right?

John Larsen [01:39:18] And then verse seven. And none have I appointed to be his counselor over the church concerning church matters, except his brother, Joseph Smith Jr. And this is referencing the fact that Oliver was the second elder. And so Joseph is at this point when he's modifying these revelations, taking away that power. So the original Revelation said, and I have appointed to be.

John Larsen [01:39:45] And none have I appointed to be over him in the church, except his brother, Joseph Smith Jr. Okay, so let me. I just kind of mangled that a little bit. We're talking about Oliver Cowdery, who was set up to be the second Elder. And the interpretation is he was second in charge of the church, first elder, second elder. They didn't have the hierarchy like they have now. These guys were both at the top rung. And the original thing, none have I appointed to be over him, Oliver Cowdery in the church, except his brother, Joseph Smith. So the original Revelation said, nobody has more authority than Oliver except Joseph.

Oliver Cowdery's Role and Diminished Authority

John Larsen [01:40:25] And it just says to be over him. And then they instituted his counselor. So what they did is they took Oliver's power and limited it to the domain of being the counselor of Joseph Smith. And then they inserted the word concerning church matters. So let me read the two to you one more time. The original Revelation says, and none have I appointed to be over him in the church, except at his brother, Joseph Smith Jr. Him being Oliver Cowdery. Though what it says now is, and none have I appointed to be his counselor over him in the church concerning church matters, except it is his brother, Joseph Smith Jr.

John Larsen [01:41:02] Because Joseph Smith always retained power to give commentary on the economics. How many boots would be manufactured in Nauvoo, who people married where they lived. Joseph Smith had full domain as Brigham Young seized power to do so. There was no differentiation in ecclesiastical and financial matters.

John Larsen [01:41:26] So Joseph Smith made sure that Oliver Cowdery's power was limited in the Revelation, those two things. So there's two revelations I showed you that were just modified to make the mission to the Lamanites appear to be at least successful. So as a modern Mormon, when you are reading that book, Joseph Smith got that right only because it has been changed, only because it has been modified by probably Joseph Smith himself.

John Larsen [01:41:55] You know what? You give me the same set of tools that Joseph Smith had, I will be as great a prophet as he was. Because if you can rewrite any of your Revelations to match what actually outcomes, then of course you're going to be there. So this goes to the whole point of why I selected this thing to talk about. It's a pivotal story in church history, but we've completely redefined the story. So it doesn't mean to us anymore what actually happened there. And then we have actually modified the word of God, which is condemned with rather strident language in many places in the scripture of changing the word of God to make Joseph Smith look like he wasn't a buffoon.

John Dehlin [01:42:37] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So there's so many problems. There is the problem of Joseph Smith spending so much of the early Doctrine and Covenants sending these men on missions to Native Americans that failed. So that's number one. Number two is he's giving them permission to have sex with these Native American women, but only because they're inferior and dark skinned. And so it's okay to have sex with dark skinned women if, you know, if you're a colonizer on the frontier and you're missing your wife. So that's the second problem. The third is the church is changing the revelations afterwards to make Joseph Smith sound like his prophecies are coming true when they weren't.

John Dehlin [01:43:20] And that's not to mention the fact that the entire Book of Mormon was written based on the, the mound builder myth, which was super racist to begin with, and that we're basically erasing the authentic culture and identity of the Native Americans and instead trying to replace it with basically Bible, you know, New Testament Bible fan fiction based on the mound builder myth that, that then erases people's own culture, language and identity. And then there's the fact that the whole Book of Mormon was literally written with this primary purpose in mind, which failed. But now modern Mormons don't even think about it anymore and they just sort of say these are not the droids you're looking for, and they move on.

John Dehlin [01:44:03] We've stopped caring about the, the Indians or the Native Americans anymore and somehow the, the truth marches on. There are just so many reasons why this should be giving an orthodox Mormon pause to think that the restoration had any real validity.

John Larsen [01:44:21] Well, all that's absolutely true. And they set up a colony in Independence and they were there for about three years as far as I know. And I'm happy, if somebody can correct me, there was no further attempt to make excursion into the Del and to visit the Delaware Indians. Like they, they ran into a procedural snafu. And in fact, you know, Cummins wrote the letter, you know, saying these guys want access.

John Larsen [01:44:46] They could have sent a contingency up to St. Louis. As a matter of fact, after, I think Parley P. Pratt went up to St. Louis because there he dispatched a letter to Joseph Smith explaining what had happened. And I don't think there's any record of him trying to contact the General to try to get further access to the Indian territories. When they were in the colonies in Missouri and in Illinois, there were settlers, Mormon settlers, who were illegally settling in Indian land.

John Larsen [01:45:14] That especially became true up in Nauvoo, where they're heading across into Oklahoma. You know, Winter Quarters was a town that was outside of. Isn't Winter Quarters outside of Omaha? And they weren't supposed to be there. Then when they went to Salt Lake City, that was Mexican territory and Indian territory. And you know, I'm thinking the irony is the Mormons and Brigham Young kept trying to establish missions to the Indians, but they could never decide if they wanted to kill them or convert them.

John Larsen [01:45:49] And you know, we had a long series of wars with the Ute Indians and the Blackfeet and others around here. And when you read the writings of the time, it's very colonial. It's very. The Mormons do not look at Indians at all. The natives of this territory, meaning Utah, Arizona, Idaho, as being human beings, let alone people who are co inheritors of the city of Zion. Of Zion. Right.

John Dehlin [01:46:21] Yeah. One of my favorite things to come out of the Michael Koh interviews, which is also something we may want to reference in our show notes, is just how advanced Native American culture actually was. If you think about all the foods that you love today, it's not easy to domesticate plants and to breed over millennia. Yummy, tasty, productive plants that survive.

John Dehlin [01:46:47] Guess what world you didn't get tomatoes and corn and beans from the agricultural practices of Western Europe. You get that from Native Americans. And if you read Guns, Germs and Steel, which is another book, you'll learn that just the fact that they, they didn't have the same animals, the, the, the beasts of burden that the white Europeans had. They, they had llamas and alpacas and tapirs, but somehow without cattle and oxen, they were still able to domesticate tomatoes, corn, beans, which is a real, real achievement. And that's just, you know, that's just the food. Let's talk about the development of language, which, which many civilizations never developed written language, and all the advanced civilizations that got decimated not by the brains and ingeniousness of the Western European colonizers, but instead by the disease that they brought over.

John Larsen [01:47:42] Well, and a mind blower. And I apologize because the conservatives out there are saying they say stuff, but the founding fathers, the very jurisprudence of the United States States was based in large part, not exclusively English common law and other and French philosophers and stuff influence, but the Iroquois nations and their ways of governing. I believe there Were Iroquois present at this, at the signing of the declaration or not or the Constitution? Anyway, they got involved. So there were a lot of ideas, not just of food and that we had stolen from the natives, but of the very idea of how to govern and how to, and how to vote and all those things. Like the United States owes so much to the, to the native peoples. And they were, they were brilliant, amazing cultures.

John Dehlin [01:48:34] Yeah.

John Larsen [01:48:35] And unfortunately we're not ready to deal with that yet. I look forward to the time in the United States when we can deal with our own history so we can acknowledge those things that were brought to American culture through, through the slave trade. It was an unfortunate thing, but I want to be to a point where we can appreciate black music without having an Elvis to make it white for us. I want us to get to a point that we can acknowledge Native American philosophy without whitewashing it through the founding fathers and recognize that there was something lost and something gained and we're all dirty.

John Larsen [01:49:08] Right. We all have experienced privilege that comes from the poor choices of our ancestors. And that's okay. To me it's a fundamental part of Christianity. Right. That we're all fallen. And the idea of like things like critical race theory or acknowledging slavery and the genocide of indigenous peoples is important for us to recognize in what ways we are fallen so we can get redemption. To me, it's a standard Christian arc. I don't know why me as a non Christian, I'm always like trying to pull Christianity out on people. But, but there's some good stuff in there. You guys should read the Bible, at least parts of it.

John Dehlin [01:49:47] Yeah, yeah. And, and it's, it's important again that we're not beat up on any, you know, individual for these beliefs. However, it just really is important to emphasize that, that this, the Book of Mormon. If you're looking for evidences for the Book of Mormon to be true or false, the fact that it's basically condemning Native American ancestry is savage and brutal and brutish is in its own sense not just racist and mean spirited, it's just demonstrably false. It's one of the biggest evidences that the Book of Mormon isn't true because Native American civilizations were advanced, sophisticated and laudable in just so many ways.

John Larsen [01:50:30] And you mentioned this before and adapted to the land. I mean, you want the proof that the Book of Mormon is not true? That's it. America doesn't appear. Well, America of pre colonial period does not appear in the book. You know the things that like you're saying that were important. Like, like the trade of, of, of maize or the chocolate cocoa of all, all these things of, of how, you know, the, the, the brilliant trade networks and different things that were all throughout Mesoamerica as well as North America are missing.

Carah Burrell [01:51:00] Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Like how it actually was versus what Joseph imagined it to be.

John Larsen [01:51:04] Exactly right.

Carah Burrell [01:51:05] His narrative that he weaved of like, I bet they lived like this and know that that's not true whatsoever.

John Dehlin [01:51:11] Joseph literally looks around, you know, early 19th century new new England, New York, and says, huh, this is what Native Americans. Oh, I see Native Americans riding around on horseback. That must have been what they were doing a thousand, two thousand years ago. They were eating, you know, they were eating wheat and barley and corn. You know, basically all the things, you know, with, with steels and swords and helmets. He just looks around, sees what he sees and then writes that back into Native American history.

John Larsen [01:51:37] Well, and it's, it's. And, and we'll, we'll do a podcastness. I've done them in the past. If you Google John Larsen, Iroquois or whatever, you'll probably find one of the presentations, every description of Lamanites in the Book of Mormon, depending, no matter if it's supposed to be 400 BC or it's 480, you know, for a thousand years is all The Iroquois, the 19th century Iroquois, the Iroquois that.

John Larsen [01:52:01] Because that entire land was the land of the Five Nations. The Finger Lakes was like ground zero for the Iroquois nation and the Mound builders. And we refer to those and we have to remember now everyone has searched all this stuff out.

John Larsen [01:52:17] The ancestral people of the Iroquois, among others, buried their dead in heaps and mounds and they kept doing it over and over. So you'd start getting these great big hills after a thousand years, and if you dug through them, you know what you'd find? Body after body after body of warrior in, in battle armor. Right. And if you did it, if you dug in the top levels after the Spanish made contact and started trading, which I will remind people is in the 1500s. One of the, the, some of the biggest things that, that the natives love to buy were swords from, from the, the Spanish, for obvious reasons, the sword is a useful tool.

John Larsen [01:52:56] So you can dig back at Joseph Smith's time and find graves that are nearly 300 years old from Joseph Smith's time. Time that are full of old, old armor. You're going to make conclusions off that and the conclusions you're going to make are wrong.

John Dehlin [01:53:10] Yeah. I'm going to refer listeners to episodes 1063 through 1065 of Mormon stories podcast, John Hamer comes on and discusses the book of Mormon's 19th century context. And in there he goes into depth about the mound builder myth. And it's, it's just a really, really important episode. It's got visuals, it's really, really super good.

Carah Burrell [01:53:33] I need to watch that. My mom wants to take my dad on a trip through the heartland America to go look at all of the evidence for the Book of Mormon. So it's sad, it's really disappointing. And I wanted to read a comment from Radio Free Utah said, I wonder if Joseph believed Native Americans would be more amenable to his occult magic claims and therefore easier converts. And I think expanding so much of just religion in general, I think people think they have the special sauce that we have. The answer that people are looking for and our version of spirituality is superior to people with other skin colors or other cultures.

Carah Burrell [01:54:09] And that like white settlers were going to go in and they're going to like totally be down with what we are preaching to them. And if they're not, then we'll just kill them, you know, like you were saying earlier. So yeah, definitely an astute hypothesis as Mormon neuro divergence.

John Larsen [01:54:26] It's interesting. I'm trying to rack my brain and I can't think of any instances of Joseph interacting with any, any aboriginal Americans. Brigham Young did quite a bit because they were in smack in Indian territory. But Joseph usually sent other people to do those things.

Racist Hymns and Native American Stereotypes

John Dehlin [01:54:42] Before we end today, I do want to go through one exercise that I think is going to be interesting and I care and John, I want you guys to participate in this. We'll kind of do a reaction video. And the reaction that I want to do is to a hymn that I believe was in the original Mormon hymn book, but that certainly was in the Mormon hymn book through the early to mid-1900s. And the hymn was called and I'm going to put this up on the screen. It was called oh Stop and Tell me Red Man. And I'm just going to acknowledge up front, as we said at the beginning, super racist, super offensive. And this is a officially sanctioned Mormon hymn that was only removed relatively recently.

John Larsen [01:55:29] You asked if this was in the original. What you're showing is not because the original did not have any music in it, but the words might have been there.

John Dehlin [01:55:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if we Google oh stop and Tell me Redman, you actually, if you go to images and I'll show this on the screen, you can see there, there it is, there There it is in its original form.

John Larsen [01:55:50] W.W. phelps, who wrote a lot of these songs. And I think I just saw that this was written by Phelps. He. He. He was. He. He crossed the plains into Utah. I. Off the top of my head, I can't remember if he was from the Nauvoo period or the Kirtland period or what, but. So he was an original pioneer and wrote a lot of the songs we have.

John Dehlin [01:56:07] Yeah. So. So just to kind of. To end this episode, we're gonna do what I call a reaction video to oh, stop and Tell me Redman. So the way this works is I'll. I'll read. Oh, Carah, did you want to say.

Carah Burrell [01:56:23] I just wanted to read before they disappear. I wanted to do a shout out to Chemo Lewis. Is that how you pronounce it?

John Dehlin [01:56:28] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [01:56:28] That gave $20 and said, thanks, John Larsen. Good to have you back. And as well as Jason that said Jason Ream. Jason Ream. Yeah. I gave 100 and said I just jumped on. Love to see it when John the Johns get together. Smiley face.

John Dehlin [01:56:43] So, yeah, thanks to all our listeners and viewers on YouTube and Elle Hampton.

John Larsen [01:56:47] And I want to point out that I did not swear once. Wants this whole. This whole episode.

John Dehlin [01:56:51] Well, we're not done. We. You haven't. We haven't read to you and had you react to a Stop and tell me Red man. So we'll see. But here's. Here's how reaction videos work. I'm gonna read it and then you guys stop me at any point. The spirit, the secular spirit moves you. Does that sound all right? John Larsen and Carol, the table gets

Carah Burrell [01:57:10] flipped over, you'll know.

John Dehlin [01:57:11] Okay, I want you to be a part of this as well. Okay, so you're a full time about me. So viewers, I'm going to put up on the screen. Oh, stop and tell me Redman. There's four verses. This is an official Mormon hymn that's since been expunged from the. The memory through the memory hole. And here we go. Written by W.W. phelps. Okay, verse number one. Oh, stop and tell me, Red man. Who are you? Why you roam and how you get your living? Have you no God, no home with stature? Okay, wait a minute. I just got to stop there.

Carah Burrell [01:57:54] So.

John Dehlin [01:57:55] So in the book, they're saying, why are. Why are Native Americans homeless? They're just roaming around. Why in the world would Native Americans be homeless? John. John Larsen. They're just roaming.

John Larsen [01:58:06] The Palestinians, they're all just in these camps. Why don't they get. Why don't they have homes.

John Dehlin [01:58:14] So, oh, my gosh, why Native Americans? Why are you roaming? Okay. And how do you get your living? Why aren't you employed Native Americans? Why aren't you. What jobs do you have? It's basically saying. Okay, no reaction, Carah.

Carah Burrell [01:58:30] Anyway, I'm just saying, I mean, how much you want to go into every single sentence. I think it's just, again, from a colonialist perspective, you're going to look at, like. Because you don't live in a house the way I live in a house. You obviously don't have a house, Right? Like, what is this? What do you do? You don't have a job.

John Dehlin [01:58:42] Where's your W2?

Carah Burrell [01:58:43] Yeah. Like, if you don't live the way that I live, you're obviously, like, just insufficient in God's eyes. Let's get you converted already.

John Larsen [01:58:50] My first reaction is how quickly we accept the current reality as the reality. You know, like, we came and we. The meaning the colonial or the very earliest colonials in the 15th, 16th century, we came and we would see these vast civilizations. We'd come back 30 years later, and they're all gone. We know now it was smallpox and other things. Just decimated as many as they figure. As many as 90% of the Iroquois nation died from these diseases. And then we'd say, look at all these beautiful fields. Like, all the towns that are named, like Clearfield and this pleasant Valley. These were the places that were farmed by the natives. Right, right. But just how quickly we forget that we took their land meaning, the colonialists, and we took their means of creating any kind of living. And we say, why do you not have any means of living? You know?

John Dehlin [01:59:46] Yeah, yeah.

John Larsen [01:59:47] We're so forgetful.

Carah Burrell [01:59:48] Well said.

John Dehlin [01:59:48] Yeah, yeah. So good. Okay, so.

Carah Burrell [01:59:51] And Elle Hansen said, this song is unbelievable. And I have to disagree. It's actually very believable that they would do that. It says right on brand for the church.

John Dehlin [01:59:59] Okay, so how do you get your living? Okay, okay. Have you no God, no home? With. With stature. With stature. Straight and portly and decked in native pride. With feathers, paints and brooches. He willingly replied. Okay, so that's verse one. Any. Any. Any other reaction to verse one?

John Larsen [02:00:26] Well, it's. It's. It speaks to the root of, like, racism, like, what we do. You. You put on your Sunday best, You know, you put on your. Your necktie, which serves no purpose, you know, made of silk. And you put a brooch on it and, you know, and you come in with your feather and your. Your clothing. That is not practical work. Out in the field. And that's just us, you know, showing our respect for God. But when the natives come in decorated, however they do. Oh, your veins. It's vanity. Just. Human beings were just so terrible at empathy.

John Dehlin [02:00:59] And I have to say that they had no God. Like, can you imagine telling Native Americans that their ancestors were godless? Right, like, super offensive.

John Larsen [02:01:12] Very, very.

John Dehlin [02:01:13] Okay, verse two. Verse two. This is. This is the fictitious red man replying to verse one. Okay, so, so this is in the voice of the fictitious red man in this super racist Mormon hymn quote. I was once I. I once was pleasant Ephraim, when Jacob for me prayed. But oh, how blessings vanish when man from God has strayed. John Larsen, can you interpret what Redman is telling us when he says, I once was pleasant Ephraim, when Jacob for me prayed.

John Larsen [02:01:55] So that goes to the biblical myth of the 12 tribes. And that was continued that these are God's chosen people. And Jacob had two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, who became inheritors of Jacob and Reuben's seat on the 12 because Reuben had sex with one of his father's wives. Right. So they're the replacement people. And the Book of Mormon teaches that the Native Americans were descendants of the house of Jacob from. They're Jews.

John Dehlin [02:02:31] And we're basically blaming all this dysfunction, all this Israelite old world dysfunction on the natives. And they have nothing to do with all this silliness.

John Larsen [02:02:39] Correct.

John Dehlin [02:02:39] But somehow now all of a sudden, fictitious Red man needs to be framed in terms of Jacob and Reuben and all the silly, silly old silliness of the Old Testament. Okay, so, so it goes on to write, before your nations knew us, some thousand moons ago. Why are you laughing at thousand moons ago?

John Larsen [02:03:05] Because it's one of those tropes that unfortunately I watched cartoons when I was a kid in the 70s, from the 30s, and you know, they would always have, like, Indians saying really offensive things. They always talk about, like, Indians couldn't keep track of days or weeks or months. They'd always talk about in moons, many moons. And for some reason, like, white Americans thought that was a funny insult. And I mean, I have no idea if anybody even says that at all, but it's what they. It's always the words they put in their mouth to make Indians seem like they were children, like they were not as smart as white people.

John Dehlin [02:03:34] In fact, you. Those of you listening won't remember that the Lone Ranger was a really famous. This black and white sort of TV series that had a white cowboy with a Native American sidekick. Does Anyone remember what the sidekick's name was?

John Larsen [02:03:51] Tonto.

John Dehlin [02:03:52] Tonto. Which in Spanish means what? I don't know, Dumb or stupid. Tonto means dumb or stupid.

John Larsen [02:03:59] I did not know that.

John Dehlin [02:04:00] And. And of course. And of course, Tonto would say many moons ago. It's just. It's just such a trope. Anyway, were you gonna say something?

Carah Burrell [02:04:08] Yeah, I. I went on the chat and said, sarah Newcomb, where are you? I am speechless. And she did. She chimed in and said, I was told that. I was told that by missionaries in recent years. The no God thing.

John Dehlin [02:04:20] That they were God.

Carah Burrell [02:04:21] That they were godless. And she also said, I learned all this growing up as a child. My people's indigenous beliefs and ways of life were incorrect traditions.

John Dehlin [02:04:31] Yeah. Not. Not fun. And I hate to laugh at this, but it's one of those.

Carah Burrell [02:04:35] Again, we laugh so we don't cry.

John Dehlin [02:04:37] We laugh so we don't cry.

Carah Burrell [02:04:38] It's terrible.

John Dehlin [02:04:39] Before your nations knew us, some thousand moons ago, our fathers fell in darkness and wandered to and fro. So basically, John Larsen, when the conquistadors from Spain and Portugal arrived in the Americas, natives were just wandering to and fro. Is that right? Just aimlessly wandering to and frozen. When Montezuma. When Cortez shows up in Mexico, the natives in Mexico were just wandering to and fro. There was no Montezuma. There was no massive civilization upon civilization upon civilization with water and with trade and with agriculture. Natives were just wandering to and fro when the conquistadors arrived. Is that right?

John Larsen [02:05:25] It's just nuts. The Iroquois, you know, from Upper State New York, they. They were settled. They had long houses and they would often. They would sometimes move from time to time. And a lot of it had to do with hygiene of horses. If, you know, it's kind of like throws your world upside down. But horses poo and they eat. And you can't keep them all in the same place. You have to. You have to move them around. But for the Iroquois and those people, they would oftentimes have a fishing village and a hunting spot. It was really the Plains Indians, you know, like the Delaware and the Dakotas and those. Those who were more. But they had a territory they roamed through and they would oftentimes follow.

John Dehlin [02:06:06] They were hunter gatherers.

John Larsen [02:06:07] They were hunter gatherers. Yeah, but. But they would. They. They would come and they'd winter in the same spot all the time. It was. It was there. It was their land. Now you move even further. If we look at, like Lewis and Clark, they talk about whole, you know, as they followed the, the rivers in the west, they would talk about cities of settled nations. Like, it's interesting how we wipe these cities out and then say, well, they didn't have any.

John Dehlin [02:06:29] Well, you know, you just go to like Tikal or pay 10 in Guatemala or Machu Picchu in Peru. You've got these literally temples built with stone. That wasn't easy. You didn't see a lot of American Western European settlers building civilization temples out of stone. They had these grass huts. Go watch Little House on the Prairie and what types of houses the European settlers were able to build. Native Americans had these massive stone civilizations. They weren't wandering to and fro. And what's bizarre is. Well, it's bizarre and it's not bizarre. The 19th century Joseph Smith, you know, people, they were closer to the existence of those civilizations than we were.

John Dehlin [02:07:12] They just didn't have the benefit of modern archaeology and anthropology that ended up uncovering these advanced civilizations. So Joseph wouldn't have even known. And the American settlers in, in New York wouldn't have had the information to talk about the ancestors to the Native Americans as having advanced civilizations because they wouldn't have known about Tikal and Petan and Machu Picchu and all of these advanced civilians.

John Larsen [02:07:36] And they didn't respect them at all. You can read.

John Dehlin [02:07:38] Yeah, they didn't want to know.

John Larsen [02:07:39] You can read the journals and writings of, of early American settlers, 17th, 16th, 17th century. And they would come and find massive stone structures and pull them down to build hedgerow fences. Yeah, that there are. There's a great book I have at home that is a catalog of all the remaining like native sites. And really the conclusion that archaeologists make is the United States used to be absolutely covered in them.

John Dehlin [02:08:04] Right.

John Larsen [02:08:05] But the only reason they're in the corners of the world, you know, like down at Mesa Verde or whatever, they're in places we don't want to live because we just tore them all down, plowed the fields. There's places where there's still like natural lakes that have like 90°, you know, like, because they built irrigation systems, some of them. We look at the remains of them, we don't even understand how they worked, you know, so. So the idea that these guys were just wandering free, stupid. It's. It's all disgusting.

John Dehlin [02:08:32] Super offensive. Okay, we're only, we're only two verses in. We've got two verses to go to Mormon Church. Oh, stop and tell me red man him. Now we're on to verse three so you guys can follow along. And long they've lived by hunting instead of work and arts. Okay, someone's got to stop me. Carah, why is your mouth open? Are you yawning?

Carah Burrell [02:08:58] This is the same thing we've said already, where it's like, why do you just, like, ask them, like, why are you. This is so presumptuous. Like, of course they have culture and arts and, like, a rich history.

John Dehlin [02:09:09] So, first of all, hunting isn't work, apparently. Yeah, apparently it's easy to go, you know, modern. You know, modern days, we just go to the grocery store to get our food. Apparently, it's. It's not that much effort or work to actually hunt for your food. Any response to that?

John Larsen [02:09:25] And I think about the early Mormon settlements. These are my people, so. But they were bumpkins. Like, they. It was. It was the. The hillbillies out in. In southern Utah, and they were up hunting and doing all this stuff, too. Phelps was probably more a Salt Lake City man himself and didn't realize that, you know, these are things that everyone is. Hunting was part of the culture of this place and all those places. And I don't understand why humans can look at one person doing something, another doing the same thing and make a differentiation.

John Dehlin [02:09:57] Yeah, it's just so gross to say that they didn't work. Native Americans didn't work work. Even though hunting is incredibly hard, they didn't work. And, you know, so it says, and long they've lived by hunting. Of course, it's a. It's not acknowledging the massively advanced agricultural systems in Meso, in South America that we all benefit from. Now, you would not have corn, tomatoes, beans, chiles, any of that stuff, jalapenos, without the advanced agricultural system of Meso and South America. But apparently they didn't work, and all they did was roam around and kill things.

John Larsen [02:10:36] Well, and the natives of the Americas, North America were able to maintain healthy bison herds, elk herds, bear. You know, like, when the white settlers came here, the environment was in balance. This is with, again, 50 million people living in. In what would be the United States today. Yeah, like, so it's. It's not only The. The. The W.W. phelps people has decimated all of that.

John Dehlin [02:11:03] Right.

John Larsen [02:11:03] Like, like, it's. It's. It's all destroyed right there. There are still hunting, but it's in patches and stuff. So, so, so we couldn't do what they were able to do, and here we're insulting them for it.

Carah Burrell [02:11:15] I was gonna say, in the framing of what I was talking about with the tribe book, maybe this is all just, like, more Propaganda because they're losing so many people to what's actually was originally what they thought was an inferior civilization. They're actually recognizing it's superior and people are wanting to run away and go live with them. So it's like you don't want to live with them because they're roaming around wild. They don't even work. They don't even have arts. So it's all just like this propaganda in song form for sure.

John Dehlin [02:11:39] No, absolutely, Carrie, you're right. Like, John, you talked about how we needed the Curse of Cain myth back in the 17 and 1800s as Christians to justify the slavery that we were engaging in as we were capturing black Africans, bringing them to the United States and enslaving them. We needed a narrative to justify that.

John Dehlin [02:12:02] Similarly, the entire mound builder myth that, that Joseph Smith wasn't even. It wasn't even original with Joseph Smith, the mound builder myth that he co opted. And there's a really good book about the mound builder myth. I think his name is Jason Melito that we should probably link to in the show. Notes, Notes. The entire reason that we had to create the mound builder myth was because we were displacing and killing and basically committing genocide on the Native Americans. And we needed a justification. So the justification was they were dirty, lazy, slothful, violent savages.

The Mound Builder Myth and Mormon Theology

John Dehlin [02:12:34] And, and so, you know, and that's why we're able to kill and displace them. Carry. You're a thousand percent right. That is exactly what's going on.

Carah Burrell [02:12:42] Yeah. And then you do it in song form just like people are whistling it through the streets.

John Dehlin [02:12:46] Teach it to your little baby.

John Larsen [02:12:48] That's what's important. You. You have to have these things so ingrained that kids grow up just thinking, oh, well, Indians are a secondary people. They're a secondary. They're. They're the butt of the joke. They're the, they're the, the people who get conquered in every, in every movie, you know?

John Dehlin [02:13:02] Yeah.

Carah Burrell [02:13:02] That's why, like, if you want to learn about something, I know that this is going to come be ironic coming from the Borman Stories podcast, but if you do want to learn about whatever, if it's a sports team, if you want to know the stats on, like, the Yankees game, you don't talk to, like a Red Socks fam because you're not going to get an accurate representation. And I know this comes across a little bit ironic because of the way that sometimes we talk about the church here at Mormon Stories, but generally speaking, I think that this is just a Huge red flag to people listening that, hello, like the church for so long needed to paint a narrative about black people, indigenous people, women, so many people, because they needed to put them in their place.

Carah Burrell [02:13:39] And they had a specific narrative for many years about God's intentions for these people. And it always benefits one certain type of person. I'll let you guys fill in the blank, what that person was, and that was the person forwarding the narrative.

John Dehlin [02:13:53] Okay, so Mormons, So Mormons, in verse three of oh, stop and tell me Red man, they've got the. The red man, the Native American saying. And long they lived by hunting instead of work and arts. And so our race has dwindled to idle Indian hearts. So, so the red man is describing his own people as lazy and idle, idle Indian hearts. He goes on to, in verse three, continue and says, yet hope within us lingers. So the red man, the red man's hopeful. According to the 19th century Mormons, the red man's hopeful. Don't lose hope, red men, because red man is hopeful. And he says, yet hope within us lingers, as if the Spirit spoke yoke, he'll come for your redemption and break your gentile yoke. What the heck does that mean, redemption and the gentile yoke? I don't even know what that means.

John Larsen [02:14:50] Well, the Book of Mormon acknowledges that, interestingly enough, that the, the Indians are going to be buffeted around, mistreated by white men. I think, I think that. I think that Joseph recognized that at least, you know, that there was some acknowledgement that that was happening. Right. So it's sort of canonized. But what you see is people rationalizing and to get rid of that cognitive dissonance. Well, we see that these people are being mistreated.

John Dehlin [02:15:25] We're mistreating them.

John Larsen [02:15:26] There's a reason for it. And for Mormons, the ultimate reason is it's God. God wants it to happen. Happen. God wanted the Trail of tears because laman2400 years earlier was a dick. Right? I mean, that's, that's, you know, like there's these things that happened that we can find no archeological evidence of, no cultural evidence of, no anthropological evidence of nothing. But according to the Book of Mormon, these people have terrible lives filled with disease and addiction and lack of access to clean water, lack of access to electricity, lack of access to health care because of what decisions were made in a civilization that is completely lost to us on this book, written by a kid in New York. That's the God you all believe in.

Carah Burrell [02:16:19] I thought we were supposed to Only be accountable for our sins and not like, Adam's transgressions. I thought that that was like a selling point of Mormonism, right? Is that you're accountable for your own sins unless it has to do with dark people. Dark people.

John Larsen [02:16:31] We kind of deal with that in the cane one. Right. But yeah, it's true. When you say it out loud and you diagram it out, it's those blessings are given to white people. And anybody who's not white, Indo, European, doesn't have those blessings. God doesn't care about them. Them. Why has God never sent a prophet to China? Yeah, well, some would say, oh, he has. It's just lost. Well, what's the difference between a lost prophet who nobody knows their words and no prophet at all, you know, Or India.

John Dehlin [02:17:06] Yeah. And that's such a great point, Carah and John, that, that we have there, right there in the articles of. Of faith in Mormonism, that men will be punished for their own sins and not for Adam's transgressions, except for the dark people. And they, you know, they. They're cursed with dark skin all the time because of the wickedness of their ancestors, which is super racist to begin with, but it actually violates our own articles of faith. And yet the white believing Mormons from Utah don't even. They yawn and don't even give a second thought to the fact that these doctrines enshrined in scripture, in the Book of Mormon, they themselves violate our own articles of faith. And because they're dark people, we don't even care. Give it a second thought.

Carah Burrell [02:17:49] Anyone who's still attending church right now, and if your kids are in primary, please have them raise their hand and ask their Sunday school teachers when they're memorizing that second article of faith. What about.

John Dehlin [02:18:00] No, literally, why did God curse Native Americans with dark skin if. If men will be punished for their own sins and not for the transgressions of their forefathers?

John Larsen [02:18:11] Here's a homework assignment. Look up the meaning of the word rebuff. That word shows up. Rebuff. They're being rebuffed for what? Things that people did 800, a thousand years ago that no one has any cultural memory of whatsoever. Yeah, it's. It's, It's. It's weird and offensive, so.

John Dehlin [02:18:29] Oh, Carah, were you saying something?

Carah Burrell [02:18:30] Yeah. Remember when you asked me what I based my life on now that I left the church? And I just. I was like, oh, you want me to want to rant? All I said was evidence and empathy, and I was like, yeah, because what John's saying here is like, we're basing this stuff off that has no evidence whatsoever to subjugate people for hundreds of years since Mormonism's foundation. How about not? And we'll just move forward, not doing any of that. We'll just base it on empathy for people who are different and evidence of what's actually true, instead of making up something as a reason to subjugate people. No, thank you.

John Larsen [02:19:00] I want to go full circle. There are people who say I'm offensive because I say poo, poo, pee, pee, whatever. This stuff is horrific. You can read if you know where to read about mutilated Indian bodies from the 19th century.

John Larsen [02:19:19] Like the things that were done, desecrated graves in the name of this stuff, all this teaching, it's gross. You saw us kind of like before we even jumped in, hold our nose and say, listen, we're going to talk about some stuff here.

John Larsen [02:19:35] So that's my point is you don't want to listen to me until you can deal with your home pile of disgust that I had to crawl myself out of, too. I was raised in the 70s and 80s. I was raised in a culture of continual, perpetual white supremacy.

John Larsen [02:19:53] And what's funny about that word is it means that white people are supreme. I think the word, we oftentimes associate it with violence or extremist white supremacists. And that's not what Mormons are, generally speaking. That's not what white America is, generally speaking. But the ideas themselves have embedded that there is a pyramid of culture. There is a pyramid of who we should pay attention to, of who gets resources, of who gets water. We're looking at that distribution rights of water that's been promised to native people. It's a big deal in Southern Oregon, northern California right now. Now, we haven't come across these issues, and that's because there's an underlying cultural meme or cultural element that white people are superior, they're smarter, they're better, they're faster, they're beautiful, whatever.

John Larsen [02:20:42] And. And it permeates everything. And you won't see it until you do. And once you see it, you can't escape it. And that's what we're trying to systematically say. And I know some of my conservative friends listening right now are like, why are you being offensive and calling these this? Because we all were. And you know what? I have in a deeper secret. We're not the only ones. Go spend a year in Japan and you can learn about racism. You know, so. So racism is endemic to the human race. And once we realize that, then we can start like, dealing with it and start dealing with people as, as, as peers.

John Larsen [02:21:17] But first thing we have to do is get rid of the religions that are built upon. The idea that some cultures are inferior and need to be have things taken away from them or doing violence, both either physical or to their culture is not okay. Not in the name of God, not in the name of anything. It's not okay.

Carah Burrell [02:21:34] Yeah. And I just wanted to add to the point that you're going for at the beginning where you're like, people get offended that I say naughty words sometimes and I have to deal with that as well. Like in my Mormon Stories interview, I probably said that word 40 times and that's how I talk. And sometimes that's just a way I express myself. No big deal. But. But a lot of people who are on the fence and Mormonism and they take a gamble and listen to a Mormon Stories episode and they, yes. Get offended by. I think that is thought stopping maybe. Would that be how to classify it?

Carah Burrell [02:22:03] Yeah, because they want to find something offensive to justify their discomfort in the things that are literally the offensive parts of what we're talking about right now about the, the, the. The system that needs to be broken down and the acknowledgement of what I have to say to the. That we're going to have to unpack and deal with the ramifications of all of that. And so I just want to encourage people and really nail down John's point here that if at any point John Larsen comes on and we're talking about, you know, the curse of Cain or these laymanite doctrines and genocide and things, please do not look at it as if we are like condemning white people and we're just trying to be offensive for offensive sake by throwing out the F word or something.

Carah Burrell [02:22:44] It's because we're trying to dig. Dig deeper into things that have affected America off of people who are. Call themselves Americans of all different backgrounds to try to make the system better. Like, just look deeper.

John Larsen [02:22:55] Yeah, Carah, that's. I think you said it really well, and I think they might ask, well, okay, John, you've been on this podcast four times. Why are you always talking about this? These aren't just auxiliary parts of Mormonism. These are foundational myths. This cuts down to the core of what Mormonism is, is. And can you have Mormonism without the racism? This guy says no, because there ain't anything left. So, so you, but you gotta. We gotta root it out.

John Dehlin [02:23:21] No, it's it's literally the title page of the Book of Mormon. That's how we started today. It's all about. It's all built on these racist beliefs. And then the book, the Doctrine and Covenants has got the revelations there. There's no way to disentangle the. The super racist beliefs and colonialistic beliefs from Mormonism. I do want to refer people to a really good documentary called Exterminate all the Brutes. It's on hbo. It talks about the evils of colonialism. And I also want to mention you mentioned John, the Trail of Tears. Sarah Newcomb, who we interviewed, who is a Native American, ex Mormon, she talked about how, I think she found a quote from Brigham Young who characterized the Trail of Tears as Manifest Destiny.

Carah Burrell [02:24:08] That was Joseph Smith. That's me. I made that into a TikTok, by the way.

John Dehlin [02:24:10] Is that Joseph Smith?

Carah Burrell [02:24:11] Yeah, it should be on the Mormon story.

John Dehlin [02:24:12] Did you know that John Larsen, that Joseph Smith characterized the Trail of Tears as Manifest Destiny, meaning that it was God's will that this genocide occurs because of the. Because it's what white people are meant to do, basically.

John Larsen [02:24:24] It doesn't surprise me at all. That would have been. That's a prevalent belief of the 19th century that the shining hill, the United States was a special place and that's why it has been encoded into US religion. That's why we have the place we are now where American religion is. American Christianity is really in crisis because it's being taken over by the Christian nationalists. And that's why I got so flamed up at Holland, because Mormonism is on the edge of a knife right now. And there are these nationalistic, xenophobic elements that are anti intellectual, anti academy, anti science, that are flirting with violent nationalism. And it's come up before and it's scary right now. And the church doesn't know where it wants to be and it has a lot of that in there.

John Dehlin [02:25:18] Yeah, so true.

John Larsen [02:25:19] I will add because I think there'll be a lot of people listening to stuff like this. And like we do the Cain thing and they say, rightfully so. They say, I don't feel this way towards black people. I don't feel this way towards natives, aboriginal Americans.

John Larsen [02:25:33] I may not spend a lot of time, but I don't carry those prejudices. All right, but what we've done is we've converted that same teaching of, you know the song about the red man. And then, I'm sorry, Carolyn, but then we converted into My Turn on Earth and we converted it into Saturday's Warrior and these other elements where Mormons are themselves a select and elite people, that's not necessarily based on the color of our skin anymore.

John Larsen [02:26:06] It's the same teaching. Yeah, it's the same idea that there are some people who have special covenants of God, that there's passwords or secret knowledge that only a small. Should we say Kabbalah of people know to get into heaven, that there's these families that have. That have the names, that keep getting the positions, that there's concentration of wealth and political power.

John Larsen [02:26:28] Those things are still with us and it just transforms. But the history of the human race has always been an elite group of people who control and they need to teach their children and the people who are part of that that they're special and they're different and they're better than everyone else.

John Dehlin [02:26:42] Yeah. Yeah. I once heard a quote that said there's never been a civilization on earth who received the revelation from God that those other guys were the chosen people. Somehow it's always God who's saying you're great is the chosen people and that, you know, that it's worth saying that even the notion that the Jews are the chosen people is super racist. Why were the Jews God's chosen people and not the Chinese or the Indians or the actual Native Americans? Like, even the teaching that the Jews are God's chosen people is a fundamentally racist teaching. And the fact that Joseph Smith just continued it with the talk of the pure blood of Israel versus the Gentiles and the adopted blood of Israel and then it all gets written into our patriarchal blessings. It's all super dumb and racist.

Carah Burrell [02:27:32] Somebody in the comments said drink every time John says super racist.

John Dehlin [02:27:35] I know it is though. It is.

Carah Burrell [02:27:36] It's true.

John Dehlin [02:27:37] And we're not even done with. Oh, stop and tell me, Red man. So I'm just going to read the

Carah Burrell [02:27:41] super chats before they disappear real quick.

John Dehlin [02:27:43] Okay, go ahead.

Carah Burrell [02:27:43] I'm sorry if I don't get to all of them. Jerome said, epic, epic episode. Thanks, John Larsen. Keep them coming. Terry said. Incredible and enlightening. I hope my LDS relatives will one day see this. Keep up the great work. By the way, tried to make this an even amount. Yeah, it's hard. You either can make 50 donations or 100. Not sure why, but. And lastly, Heather said, my mom is Hispanic and dad is Caucasian. I am the darkest sibling and was made to be the laymanite with others from the Hispanic branch in Utah Pioneer Day Parade while my siblings were pioneers years. That's ridiculous.

John Dehlin [02:28:21] Oh my gosh yeah. So super huge thanks to all our. Thank you for the listeners and viewers on YouTube that are donating because we do. We pay John Larsen for showing up, we pay Carah for her support. And your donations go towards, towards those things. So thank you.

Carah Burrell [02:28:35] Yeah, these are huge. Thank you guys.

John Dehlin [02:28:37] So thanks. Okay, so back to. And stop and oh stop and tell me Red man. We end verse, verse 3. Yet hope within us lingers as if the spirit spoke. He'll come for your redemption and break your gentile yoke. The point that I wanted to make there is this idea that Native Americans are yoked and that once they become righteous, the yoke will be broken. That really is self blame. It's basically, it's a, it's a common cult technique that, that when you're being, when, when undue influence is being exerted over you, it's somehow your fault.

John Larsen [02:29:12] I don't want to hit you with my belt, but you just make me do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:29:17] So Native Americans, you're under yoke of the gentile because of your own wickedness. But if you become Christian and if you adopt this super racist, you know, Mormon narrative, we'll relieve you of your yoke and you'll be restored as the pure blood of Israel, which by the way, still hasn't happened in this 2021, but that's the whole point of this podcast. Okay, so we've now finished with verse three of oh stop and tell me Redman. We are now on to the final verse.

Lamanite Prophecy Analyzed Verse by Verse

John Larsen [02:29:44] Verse.

John Dehlin [02:29:44] It's amazing. Verse four. Here we go. And all your and all your captive brothers from every climb shall come and quit their savage customs to live with God at home. Then joy will fill your bosoms and blessings crown our days to live in pure religion and sing our Maker's praise.

John Larsen [02:30:14] I just want to point out that it wasn't a slip of John. It really was bosoms. It really was in plural.

John Dehlin [02:30:19] Bosoms. Yeah, and that's, you know, you could say that it ends on this euphoric note that someday the Native Americans will be freed from their captivities, that they'll all come together, quit their savage customs, which is super offensive and racist.

John Dehlin [02:30:37] To live with God at home they'll have joy in their bosoms, Blessings with crowns in the final days to live the pure religion and religion and sing their makers praise. And again, it's 2021 and none of Joseph Smith's prophecies have ever come true. And in fact, the church has abandoned and forsaken the Lamanites They've changed the name of the Lamanite Generation performing troupe at BYU to.

John Dehlin [02:31:02] What's the name now? Newton Something Generation. They're not even the Lamanite generation anymore. We don't know who the Lamanites are because modern DNA science has shown that Native Americans are in fact, not descendants of Israelites from 600 BC but instead are literally descendants of Mongolians that came across the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago.

John Dehlin [02:31:30] And it's just all absurd and crazy, and it's all been disproved. None of the prophecies have come true. And so now what apologists have to do is shrink the Book of Mormon geography to this tiny little territory, because the DNA evidence and the linguistic evidence and the archaeological evidence and the anthropological evidence, plus all of Joseph prophecies have all been proven false. And so now we have, you know, a whole series on Mormon stories that's been called Losing the Lamanites where we don't even know who the Lamanites are anymore. And, and the brethren during General Conference don't even want to refer to Native Americans as Lamanites anymore.

John Dehlin [02:32:08] They'll secretly do it when they go meet with them in private, but in public, we don't even know who the Lamanites are anymore. The spirit of Spencer W. Kimball has been literally abandoned. And now this is just this footnote in history that is, in fact, a massive series of failed prophecies enshrined in the Doctrine and Covenants and then altered ex post facto to make Joseph Smith not look quite as bad as he otherwise should. And John Larsen, we have you to thank for bringing this whole topic to attention on Mormon Stories podcast. Because in addition to it being a blemish on Mormon history, it also proves Joseph Smith and the foundings of the Mormon Church and the Book of Mormon to be false. Am I wrong?

John Larsen [02:32:53] Oh, it's, it's. It points to one of the central paradoxes of Mormonism. If you talk to Mormons in 1842, they would have had a whole lot of truths that have been revealed that they understood. And with each passing decade, there's fewer and fewer and fewer things that the Mormon Church asserts anymore that the. The restoration of the gospel for these latter days, is it moving closer to truth or further away from truth? Truth. Because if you ask them today, mostly you'll get. I don't know. And you know what? Maybe God warned us about this, right? There's the scripture in Isaiah that talks about the. The boulder being cut forth, the mountain.

John Larsen [02:33:35] They'll roll forward and Fill the earth or whatever. Right. But what happens when you throw a rock down a mountain? Does it get bigger? No, it keeps chipping pieces off. So if you were to really roll a big boulder down at, you know, a 40 mile trek down a mountain, at the end, you'd have like a little. A little pebble. You'd have a little. And that's what's happening. Joseph Smith cut this big rock out of the mountain and we've slowly chipped away at every bit of it. And the question is, what's left? And.

Carah Burrell [02:34:04] And a new logo.

John Larsen [02:34:05] And you know what? All the good things of Mormonism, a redesigned logo character. You guys can have them without the church, like family and community and all that stuff.

John Dehlin [02:34:16] It's.

John Larsen [02:34:16] It's free for the taking. You can have it.

John Dehlin [02:34:19] Yeah. I love it. Well, John Larsen, it's always a pleasure. And this is a really. This is a really, really important topic, and it's totally been really unexplored and undiscussed in the Mormon podcast world. So thank you.

John Larsen [02:34:36] Oh, my pleasure. There's more, More of this to come.

John Dehlin [02:34:40] Please check out Sarah Newcomb's Lamanite Truth website and her Instagram page. We'll put links to all of that. That also Monica Crowfoot and Sarah Newcomb and many other Native Americans wrote articles in the most recent issue of Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon Thought. So shout out to Dialogue, a Journal of Mormon Thought that is trying to cover some of the stuff. Taylor Petrie and those good folks at Dialogue will also include a link in our show, notes to the latest issue of Dialogue. Yeah, and that's important. Carah, is there anything else you want to say in closing as we wind this up?

Closing Reflections and Future Topics

Carah Burrell [02:35:19] No. I love when John Larsen comes on because for many reasons, but I like having a super deep dive into, like John was saying, these more unexplored topics of Mormonism that, you know, we can talk about polygamy or things that a million times over, but this is a subject that I've never, you know, had such intense understanding now from this last two hours. So thank you for, yeah. Going on this deep dive for us.

John Larsen [02:35:45] Well, thanks. It's a. It's a lot of fun doing it with you guys. I. More. I've seen people post this. Mormon expression was always at its best when there was a good panel and at its. Its most boring when it was me alone. So thanks, you guys for. For helping make this happen.

John Dehlin [02:36:00] It's our pleasure. All right. Oh, go ahead, John.

John Larsen [02:36:03] So the people still listening are the super fans. So there has been A lot of requests for us to take on the Jaredite barges. What do you mean?

Carah Burrell [02:36:14] Everything's possible with God.

John Larsen [02:36:15] So the problem is that story is so kind of imaginary, it's hard to take on. But I did reread it. I read. I went and read the Book of Ether or whatever again. All right, so I need help. This. To do that podcast correctly requires a lot of research. So you dear, dear friends are going to help me. I. In the next few days. I've got a lot of stuff going on this next week or so. It'll pop up. In the next few weeks, I am going to start a thread on Reddit or on Reddit.

John Dehlin [02:36:43] Okay.

John Larsen [02:36:43] That I'm going to crowdsource some of the research that needs to be done. There's a lot of little facts that we need to find out, like how many gallons of water a cow drinks a day. So we are going to crowdsource the hell out of that thing and we're going to put together a great podcast. And I've asked John. He's tentatively agreed that we can do it live. We've talked about doing this one live.

John Dehlin [02:37:04] This one's live.

John Larsen [02:37:05] Oh, well, I mean live in front of a studio audience.

John Dehlin [02:37:08] Oh, fun.

John Larsen [02:37:08] You guys all just have to get rid of the plague. Yeah. So. So I want to start that. We need a couple months. But if you would like to like to help out, we'll give you a shout out with your real name if you want it. But we need a little help chasing down some facts for us.

Carah Burrell [02:37:22] So we need farmers, we need submariners, we need Kelly Lang to come on and tell us how submarines need to have their own. Like, what is it like a nuclear particular power plant or whatever on the water filtration.

John Larsen [02:37:33] This is like you mentioned tape heres or whatever. That's one of my pet peeves because no one really talks about tapirs in the church. And the barges aren't actually submarines, but I just read.

John Dehlin [02:37:45] But they're tied into a dish.

John Larsen [02:37:46] They're tied like unto a dish underwater. They can have water go over them. But they aren't exactly submarines. But we'll talk about it on a big long podcast and I need your help. This is a chance to, to, to step up to the big leagues and become a Mormon stories research analyst.

Carah Burrell [02:38:04] Yeah. All right, I'll leave a link. Once you, once you do the Reddit thread. Have you started it yet or no?

John Larsen [02:38:08] No.

Carah Burrell [02:38:08] Okay. Once you start it, I'll put it in the show notes.

John Dehlin [02:38:10] We should try and get Kelly Lang to come be a part of that

John Larsen [02:38:13] episode if she wants to. That. That, that Kelly's a guy. Kelly. Oh, he. He's the one who's a submarine.

John Dehlin [02:38:17] He commanded a naval nuclear submarine for years.

John Larsen [02:38:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:21] And now he commands fleets.

John Larsen [02:38:22] Yeah. Actually, I. I would love to meet and talk to Kelly. My. My father in law, my current father in law was a submariner, and a very, very good friend of mine was also. So I've heard plenty of the tales of submarines, but. But there's more pressing issues on. On building this boat in the year 2000 BC or whatever it was. So, yes, you guys have requested it. We'll get it done, but we need some help.

John Dehlin [02:38:50] All right.

Carah Burrell [02:38:51] I'm so excited. I've made a couple tiktoks about it. And that's always a real popular one when people are like. Because even as a Mormon, I was like, oh, did we really believe that? Or how much was I was I supposed to believe? And I think Mormons need to confront how literal are we taking what is in the scriptures? That is the most correct book of any book on earth. So that's always great.

John Larsen [02:39:09] No, we established that my book is the most correct.

Carah Burrell [02:39:12] Oh, because it says this is the most correct book.

John Larsen [02:39:14] It says that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book. Yes. So the second most correct book.

Carah Burrell [02:39:18] Right on.

John Larsen [02:39:18] I get credit.

John Dehlin [02:39:19] And we have a comment from jc. JC writes, I will join Reddit it just to contribute to the animal husbandry sort of topic on. On. On that episode.

John Larsen [02:39:32] So that and flashing stuff on the screen and everything. We're like, like big time.

John Dehlin [02:39:37] We're super high tech. And. And for listeners, I just want to end also as we began, if you guys don't know this yet, the entire Mormon Expression archive has now been put on seven different podcast platforms in a partnership with John Larsen and the Mormon Stories and the Open Stories Foundation. Thanks to the generous donations of you, our listeners. And if you go there right now, you can see there's been over 20,000 plays, 2,251 unique listeners. That's just on Spotify and it even has metrics for the most popular episodes. And John Larsen, do you want to guess which episode is the most popular episode of all time?

John Larsen [02:40:22] The most popular episode of all time is the Transoceanic vessel we just. Which I can't listen to because I. If I had to redo it, we're missing tons and tons of information in there for the reason we talked about the Jaredite barges, but that. That one's one. The others ones that remain very Important are the Expositor. The Mormon Expositor. One was.

John Dehlin [02:40:43] Was. There's too many to mention.

John Larsen [02:40:45] There's too many.

John Dehlin [02:40:46] Word of Wisdom. Mormon Expositor.

John Larsen [02:40:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:49] Nava Expositor.

John Larsen [02:40:50] We'll do the Word of Wisdom again.

John Dehlin [02:40:51] I think that one's worth DNC132. There's lots of good ones.

John Larsen [02:40:54] Yeah. At some point, maybe, maybe 20 years from now, you guys will be able to assemble John on the Doctrine Covenants that will have gone through every single revelation because they're all screwed up.

John Dehlin [02:41:04] Yeah. So if you. If you haven't checked out the Mormon Expression Archive, you can now do that on Spotify, on anchor, on Apple Podcasts, on. On the Google, whatever the Google Podcast app is. It's called Google Podcasts. If you donated to that, thank you. If you haven't. If you like John Larsen on Mormon Stories Podcast, if you like the Mormon Expression Archive being available, Please go to mormonexpression.com or mormonstories.org Mormonexpression Click on the donate button. Become a monthly donor to John Larsen and Mormon Expression on Mormon Stories, and we'll be able to keep this beautiful partnership going for time and all eternity, to borrow a phrase. So check that out again. Thanks to everyone who supported it. Thanks to all our listeners today and our commenters. Huge thanks to Carah Burrell for being co host.

Carah Burrell [02:41:59] Huge thanks to Tom for the $25 and saying, I'm a monthly donor. But thank you. This is just for having John Larsen on. Thanks, John, for all the time you've dedicated to the truth. And I also echo that statement from Tom.

John Dehlin [02:42:12] But, Carah, it's great to have you on. Everyone says you bring a breath of fresh air to Mormon Stories. I try not to take that personally. Does that mean Mormon Stories was musty and, and. And dank and smelly? John, you're kind of shrugging.

John Larsen [02:42:24] Yeah, a little bit.

John Dehlin [02:42:25] A little bit.

John Larsen [02:42:26] You know, and this is. I'm fatigued. You know, I haven't made fun of you long. These are long podcasts, John. These are long.

John Dehlin [02:42:33] Well, now you're. Now you're complicit.

John Larsen [02:42:34] And now. And you make it so much better. Thank you.

Carah Burrell [02:42:37] Thanks, John. I will say there's been times where John. John deland walks through the store and he'll say, I am so excited to get to work today. I love working with you, Carah. And he's like, pumped. I was like, I guarantee you're not like that for the last few years. I bet you're like, okay, we have to get the work done. But I think it's funner when I'm here.

John Dehlin [02:42:53] It's more fun.

Carah Burrell [02:42:54] I think you're more amped.

John Dehlin [02:42:56] It's great. So, Carah, thanks for being here. John Larsen, we love you. Stay in touch. Touch. Keep coming back and, and listeners and viewers, thanks so much for supporting us. If you want to support Mormon Stories, go to MormonStories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. If you don't, thanks to everyone who donates through YouTube and the Super Chat feature. If you have feedback on this exact episode, if you have feedback on this exact episode, you can go to Mormon Stories, click on this episode, make comments in the comment section for this post or you can go to YouTube on the. On the episode once it's streamed and you can comment there. John says he reads every comment.

John Larsen [02:43:34] Well, I. On the YouTube, I did.

John Dehlin [02:43:36] Yeah. That's good.

John Larsen [02:43:37] No, I don't always. I don't. That sounds like a commitment. I'm not ready to take the relation to that level.

John Dehlin [02:43:42] Yeah.

John Larsen [02:43:43] But you know, and yeah, I, I try to, I try to see how people are processing and people post interesting ideas there. So I'll try to take the best of them and address them.

John Dehlin [02:43:53] And also we just want to remind all of you that Thrive is back. So in addition to the Thrive for women conference, that's October 3rd over general conference weekend that's already sold out, over 800 tickets sold out to this event.

Carah Burrell [02:44:06] That's what happens when I'm hosting.

John Dehlin [02:44:07] That's right, Carah is hosting and you know, figure out if you can figure out how to sneak into that sold out event.

John Larsen [02:44:15] Is Lisa Hacking speaking there?

John Dehlin [02:44:17] She's involved. She's one of the planners of it.

John Larsen [02:44:19] Oh yeah, listen to her. She's, she's fantastic.

John Dehlin [02:44:22] She's amazing.

John Larsen [02:44:22] Brilliant.

John Dehlin [02:44:23] But most excitedly, we are announcing that that Thrive Day, November 2021 is now open for signing up and purchasing tickets. If you go to thrivebeyondreligion.com events, you can find the Thrive Day in November, November 14th. You can buy tickets now. Sarah Edmondson and her husband Nippy, they have a podcast called A Little Bit Culty. They Sarah's been on the Vow, which is an HBO series on the Nexium. Cult.

John Larsen [02:44:52] Cult.

John Dehlin [02:44:53] Sarah will be speaking at. At Thrive Day 2021. We have Lance Allred, former NBA basketball player who played with LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers. He's deaf. He was raised as a polygamist in the All Red cult. Lance Allred is speaking. He's amazing. We've got Alan and Katie Mount for marriage on a tightrope there. RFM is coming. If you want to meet Radio Free Mormon, he's coming To Thrive Day 2021. That's worth the price of your ticket alone. Bill Real will also be there. We have Monica Crowfoot from this series on Native Americans. Who's going to be speaking? Luna Lindsay Corbden, the author of the book Recovering Agency about cult techniques within the Mormon Church.

John Dehlin [02:45:35] Luna Lindsay Corbden will be there and many, many other cool guests. Latter Day Lesbians are going to be speaking. So Latter Day Lesbians, if you like the Latter Day Lesbians podcast, they will also be there in attendance and speaking. So many cool people. You got to come to Thrive day. Go to thrivebeyondreligion.com register and tell all your friends. We'll be releasing some promotional materials. And if that's not enough, we've got Thrive, Thrive Day in St. George, Thrive Day in Phoenix, Thrive Day in Southern Alberta, and many more Thrive events coming in the weeks, months and years ahead. And if you want to organize your own Thrive event, just go to thrivebeyondreligion.com click on the events button for organizing your own event and we'll get Clint and Jenny Martin in touch with you and we'll help you organize your own event.

John Dehlin [02:46:24] And you know what? Maybe you can get John Larsen to come to your Thrive event and speak that that is one of the options. And you know what? You can even get Carah Burrell to fly to your Thrive Day event and speak. All you have to do is talk to Clint, express your interest in John or Carah coming to your local Thrive event, and they'll help make it happen. John Larsen, any interest in in traveling to a Thrive event?

John Larsen [02:46:51] Sure. I've always loved to visit the Mormons outside of Utah. They're less dickish. The I've spoken to Thrive before and I've enjoyed it and I got good feedback.

Carah Burrell [02:47:01] You.

John Larsen [02:47:02] You When I'm at Thrive, you won't hear me talk about the church. You'll hear me talk about about how I find meaning. And I've had the blessing to use our in my life of meeting a lot of people who've transitioned out of the church and who have found all sorts of meaning and beauty in life. And unfortunately, in podcasts like this, we're always on the bleeding edge of talking about the problems. But there really is a spiritual genesis of people even inside who've chosen to remain. And what I like about Thrive is it connects you with the other people who who've experienced this trauma, this joint trauma. We've all experienced of either discovering or leaving the church and the people who've turned that pain into things that are beautiful. It's well worth your time to go to these conferences.

John Dehlin [02:47:47] Is it worth saying that?

John Larsen [02:47:49] Maybe.

John Dehlin [02:47:49] Is it too early to announce that maybe, John Larsen, you might be willing to participate in a Thrive Portland at some point in the near future?

John Larsen [02:47:58] Yes, that is in the preliminary works. Yes.

John Dehlin [02:48:01] So if any of you are living in the Portland area, Seattle area, Pacific Northwest, we are calling on you now. We want to do a Thrive Seattle. Maybe RFM can come because RFM lives up there, but it'd be super cool to do a Thrive Portland. And maybe if you're lucky, Carah, John and me will come to Portland or Seattle. But only if you're lucky and only if you do your part. But lots of cool stuff to come. Thrivebeyondreligion.com Even if it's a year or two from now, now, we hope that website will still be thriving, no pun intended, and you'll be able to find the latest events there. So anyway, you guys are awesome. Love you. Stay in touch. John Larsen, thanks again. Carah Burrell, you're freaking amazing. We love you and everybody else. Please give us your feedback on this episode and others@mormonstoriesgmail.com and we'll see you guys all again very soon on.

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